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TEACHER     TRAINING 
DEPARTMENTS 

IN 

MINNESOTA 
HIGH    SCHOOLS 


BY 


LOTUS  D.   COFFMAN 


,+  .,         i 


-- -  -   -      - 


GENERAL  EDUCATION  BOARD 

61   Broadway  New   York 

1920 


< 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
GENERAL  EDUCATION  BOARD 


1  1 


PUBLICATIONS     OF    THE 
GENERAL  EDUCATION  BOARD 

REPORTS: 

THE  GENERAL  EDUCATION  BOARD:  AN  ACCOUNT  OF  ITS  ACTIV- 
ITIES, I902-I914.  CLOTH,  24O  PAGES,  WITH  33  FULL-PAGE 
ILLUSTRATIONS  AND  3  I  MAPS. 

ANNUAL  REPORTS: 
1914-1915;  1916-1917;  1918-1919 

1915-1916;  1917-1918; 

STUDIES: 

PUBLIC   EDUCATION  IN   MARYLAND,   BY  ABRAHAM   FLEXNER  AND 

FRANK   P.    BACHMAN. 
PUBLIC    EDUCATION    IN    DELAWARE. 
PRIVATE    ENDOWMENT    AND    PUBLIC    EDUCATION — A    REPORT   ON 

THE  USE  OF  THE  HANDLEY  FUND,  WINCHESTER,   VA. 
TEACHER      TRAINING       DEPARTMENTS       IN       MINNESOTA      HIGH 

SCHOOLS,    BY    LOTUS    D.    COFFMAN. 
COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    FINANCE,    BY    TREVOR    ARNETT.* 
THE  SURVEY  OF  THE  GARY  SCHOOLS: 

THE    GARY    SCHOOLS:      A     GENERAL    ACCOUNT,     BY    ABRAHAM 
FLEXNER  AND  FRANK   P.    BACHMAN. 

ORGANIZATION  AND  ADMINISTRATION,   BY  GEORGE  D.  STRAYER 
AND    FRANK    P.    BACHMAN. 

COSTS,  BY  FRANK  P.   BACHMAN  AND  RALPH  BOWMAN. 

INDUSTRIAL  WORK,   BY  CHARLES  R.   RICHARDS. 

HOUSEHOLD    ARTS,    BY    EVA    W.    WHITE. 

PHYSICAL   TRAINING    AND    PLAY,    BY    LEE    F.    HANMER. 

SCIENCE    TEACHING,    BY    OTIS    W.    CALDWELL. 

MEASUREMENT     OF     CLASSROOM     PRODUCTS,     BY     STUART     A. 
COURTIS. 

OCCASIONAL  PAPERS: 

1.  THE    COUNTRY    SCHOOL    OF    TO-MORROW,    BY    FREDERICK    T. 

GATES. 

2.  CHANGES  NEEDED  IN  AMERICAN  SECONDARY  EDUCATION,  BY 

CHARLES    W.    ELIOT. 

3.  A  MODERN  SCHOOL,   BY  ABRAHAM   FLEXNER. 

4.  THE    FUNCTION    AND    NEEDS    OF    SCHOOLS    OF    EDUCATION    IN 

UNIVERSITIES    AND    COLLEGES,    BY    EDWIN    A.    ALDERMAN. 

5.  LATIN  AND  THE  A.B.   DEGREE,   BY  CHARLES  W.   ELIOT. 

6.  THE     WORTH     OF    ANCIENT     LITERATURE     TO    THE     MODERN 

WORLD,    BY   VISCOUNT    BRYCE. 
*In  Preparation 

The  REPORTS  issued  by  the  Board  are  official  accounts  of  its  ac- 
tivities and  expenditures.  The  STUDIES  represent  work  in  the  field 
of  educational  investigation  and  research  which  the  Board  has  made 
possible  by  appropriations  defraying  all  or  part  of  the  expense  involved. 
The  OCCASIONAL  PAPERS  are  essays  on  matters  of  current  edu- 
cational discussion,  presenting  topics  of  immediate  interest  from  vari- 
ous points  of  view.  In  issuing  the  STUDIES  and  OCCASIONAL 
PAPERS,  the  Board  acts  simply  as  publisher,  assuming  no  responsibil- 
ity for  the  opinions  of  the  authors. 

Any  publication  of  the  Board  may  be  obtained  on  request. 


416783 


CONTENTS 

Frontispiece:     Map 

page 

Introduction vii 

I.  The  History  of  the  Movement     .                .  3 

II.  The  Teachers  of  the  Training  Departments  12 

III.  The  Students  in  High  School  Training  De- 

partments      .                 23 

IV.  The  Curriculum 26 

V.     Instruction 37 

VI.     Administration .  -54 

VII.     Finances 60 

VIII.     What    Minnesota    Superintendents   Think 

of  the  Training  Departments    ....  65 

IX.     Concluding  Statement 75 

Appendices 80 

Bibliography 92 


F  EONTISPIECE 


] 


m 


Albert  Lea 

Alexandria 

Annan dale 

Anoka 

Apple ton 

Austin 

Bag  ley 

Bemidji 

Benson 

Blue  Earth 

Bralnerd 

Cambridge 

Conby 

Cannon  Falls 

Ch&tfleld 

Chieljola 

croquet 

Cokato 

Crookston 

Das s el 

Dawson 

Detroit 

Dodge  Center1 

Elbow  Lake 

Elk  ?.ivor 

Ely 

Ereleth 


MAP   SHOWING   LOCATION  AND   DISTRIBUTION   OF 

TEACHER   TRAINING    DEPARTMENTS, 

MINNESOTA 


Fairfax 

Fairmont 

Faribault 

Farmington 

Fergus  Falls 

Pulda 

Gilbert 

Glencoe 

Glenwooi 

Grand  Rapids 

Granite  Falls 

Bastings 

Hector 

Henderson 

Hibbing 

Hinckley 

Houston 

Howard  Lake 

Hutchinso*- 

Jaokeon 

Kenyon 

Lake  Benton 

Lake  City 

Lambert on 

Le3ueur 

LeSueur  Center 

Litchfield 

Little  Fells 

Long  Prairie 

Luveme 

Ho Into ah 

Madolla 

Madiaon 

Mahnomen 

Milaca 

Minneapolis 

"onte-vtldeo 

MontloellO 

Mora 

Uorrie 

New  Hiohl^nd 

Now  Fin 

Rorthfleld 

Norwood 


Olivia 
Osakle 
Owatanna 
Park  Rapids 
Pine  City 
Pipestone 
Preston 
Princeton 
Bed  Lako  Falls 
Red  Ting 
Redwood  Falls 
Renville 
Ho chaster 
Rush  City 
Rnehford 
St.' Paul 
St.  Pater 
Sauk  Center 
Slayton 
Sleepy  Eye 
So.  St.  Paul 
S tap lee 
8tlllwater 
Thief  Hiver 
Falls 
Traoy 
Virginia 
Wabaeha 
Wadena 
Talker 
Warren 
Wells 

West  Concorc" 
wheaton 
fflllmar 
Windcm 
Winthrop 
Worth  lngt  on 
Znzibrota 


INTRODUCTION 

This  report  is  based  upon  information  secured  by  con- 
ference, personal  visits  to  training  departments  and 
questionnaires  submitted  to  teachers,  students  and  super- 
intendents. Fifty  teachers  and  superintendents  were  in- 
terviewed concerning  the  work  of  training  departments; 
forty-five  different  teachers  were  visited.  In  round  num- 
bers five  hundred  recitations  were  observed,  and  ques- 
tionnaire information  was  secured  from  every  teacher  in 
the  training  departments,  from  nearly  every  student,  from 
every  county  superintendent  and  from  many  of  the  city 
superintendents.  In  the  preparation  of  this  report  I  en- 
joyed the  assistance  of  Thomas  J.  Smart,  Ellsworth 
Lowry  and  Julius  Boraas.  Mr.  Smart  was  a  teacher  of 
experience,  a  student  in  the  College  of  Agriculture  and 
the  College  of  Education,  working  for  his  master's  de- 
gree. He  is  at  present  engaged  in  extension  work  in 
agriculture  in  the  University  of  Kansas. 

Mr.  Lowry  was  also  an  experienced  teacher,  held  a 
master's  degree  from  Teachers  College,  had  been  pro- 
fessor of  education  in  Upper  Iowa  University  and  was 
a  graduate  student  at  the  University  of  Minnesota,  work- 
ing for  his  doctor's  degree.  He  is  at  present  supervisor 
of  the  training  department  in  the  State  Normal  School 
at  Winona. 

Mr.  Boraas  had  been  a  county  superintendent  in  Min- 
nesota, had  his  master's  degree  from  the  University  of 

•  • 
Vll 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

Minnesota  and  was  working  for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  in  Education  which  he  attained  at  the  close 
of  the  year  1917.  Since  then  he  has  been  professor  of 
education  in  St.  Olaf  College,  Northfield,  Minnesota. 

With  a  few  exceptions  which  will  be  clear  to  the 
reader,  the  materials  in  this  report  are  descriptive  of  the 
situation  that  existed  in  the  training  departments  of 
Minnesota  during  the  years  of  1915-16  and  1916-17. 
Since  then  there  has  been  a  gradual  improvement  in  the 
personnel  of  the  teaching  staff,  practice  teaching  has  been 
standardized,  regulations  governing  the  nature  and  fre- 
quency of  observation  work  have  been  issued,  lesson 
planning  has  been  more  carefully  developed,  and  follow- 
up  and  extension  work  have  been  more  closely  super- 
vised. Perhaps  the  most  important  single  influence  at 
work  is  the  increase  in  the  amount  of  aid  granted  the  de- 
partments by  the  recent  legislature.  Aid  was  increased 
from  $1200  to  $1600  for  one-teacher  departments  and 
from  $2000  to  $2400  for  two-teacher  departments.  This 
has  made  it  possible  to  equip  the  departments  more  ade- 
quately and  to  give  the  teachers  an  average  increase  of 
$200  in  their  annual  salaries. 

Acknowledgment  is  also  made  to  Miss  Frances  More- 
house of  the  University  High  School  of  the  University 
of  Minnesota  for  her  invaluable  assistance  in  the  writing 
of  the  report. 

L.    D.    COFFMAN. 


TEACHER  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS 
IN  MINNESOTA  HIGH   SCHOOLS 

BY 

LOTUS  D.    COFFMAN 


:     :•    .%  ;•     . 


Teacher  Training  Departments 
in  Minnesota  High  Schools 

I.     THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  MOVEMENT 

BEGINNINGS 

It  is  impossible  to  say  just  when  the  idea  of  using  high 
schools  for  the  training  of  country  school  teachers  first 
appeared  in  Minnesota.  In  1894-95,  when  the  legislature 
first  took  notice  of  the  movement,  there  were  a  number 
of  schools  offering  training  courses  in  the  common 
branches.  There  were  no  separate  departments  then,  the 
regular  high  school  teachers  simply  giving  review  courses 
in  arithmetic,  geography,  history  and  grammar  for  the 
benefit  of  those  students  who  expected  to  take  teachers' 
examinations.  Mr.  George  B.  Aiton,  who  was  at  that 
time  high  school  inspector,  in  his  first  report  (1894) 
urged  that  high  schools  undertake  the  work  of  training 
young  teachers  for  the  rural  schools  in  their  vicinity  as 
a  part  of  their  community  service,  since  they  owed  some- 
thing to  the  country  of  which  the  towns  formed  the  busi- 
ness center.  He  urged  moreover  that  such  courses  should 
not  be  mere  cramming  devices  hastily  inserted  in  the 
curriculum  just  before  examinations,  but  that  they 
should  include  some  instruction  in  method  and  be  con- 
ducted from  a  teaching  point  of  view. 

In  the  session  of  1894-95,  the  state  legislature  made  an 
appropriation  of  $500  a  year  to  such  high  schools  as  of- 


4       TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

fered  "systematic  work  in  senior  common  branches." 
Twenty-two  schools  were  aided  that  year,  but  in  most 
of  them  the  work  still  smacked  strongly  of  the  character 
of  a  "cram  course"  for  examinations.  For  a  period  of 
about  ten  years,  many  schools  offered  review  courses  in 
the  common  branches,  while  some  superintendents  re- 
fused to  introduce  the  new  scheme  because  they  consid- 
ered such  courses  unworthy  of  high  school  credit  and 
belonging  properly  to  the  sphere  of  normal  school  in- 
struction. Sometimes  they  yielded  to  the  demand  for 
them  under  protest,  took  no  real  interest  in  the  work, 
and  dropped  the  courses  as  soon  as  public  interest  in 
them  lagged  or  the  immediate  demand  ceased.  The  in- 
spector reported  that  the  work  as  usually  done  did  not 
conform  to  standards,  often  being  relegated  to  teachers 
without  proper  training  and  with  no  deep  interest  in 
the  country  schools  or  their  needs.  On  the  whole  the 
results  attained  were  far  from  satisfactory. 

In  1903,  however,  the  legislature  was  induced  to  in- 
crease the  appropriation  to  $750  per  year  to  "each  high 
school  having  a  four-year  course  and  organized  classes  in 
each  of  the  four  grades  therein,  which  shall  provide  for 
special  normal  instruction  in  the  common  branches." 
This  made  actual  teacher-training  departments  financially 
possible,  but  as  there  was  no  one  able  to  give  enough  time 
to  the  matter  to  organize  them,  the  work  continued  on  an 
unsatisfactory  basis  for  several  years.  In  his  report  for 
1906  the  state  high  school  inspector  said: 

"From  the  first,  the  departments  have  been  attended 
by  high  school  students  intending  to  teach  in  district 
schools.  A  large  number  of  well  prepared  teachers  have 
been  sent  out  into  the  counties  around  these  schools.  In 
this  respect  the  act  has  borne  excellent  fruit.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  enrollment  of  rural  cadets  has  been  dis- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  MOVEMENT         5 

tressingly  small,  and  has  demonstrated  pretty  thoroughly 
that  the  rural  girl  who  can  get  a  third  grade  certificate 
has  little  desire  for  anything  better.  So  far  as  reaching 
the  non-resident  teachers  is  concerned,  the  movement  is 
a  failure.  Then,  too,  the  enrollment  of  high  school  stu- 
dents runs  out.  The  number  of  high  school  students 
who  can  turn  aside  properly  from  academic  work  to  fit 
themselves  for  rural  positions  is  necessarily  small. 
After  two  or  three  years  of  existence  the  departments 
fail  for  want  of  students." 

A  PERIOD  OF  STRUGGLE 

There  now  ensued  several  years  during  which  those 
interested  in  the  better  training  of  country  school  teachers 
strove  to  solve  a  difficult  problem.  It  was  then  deemed 
impracticable  to  increase  the  number  and  equipment  of 
normal  schools  in  the  state  to  the  point  at  which  they 
could  furnish  training  for  the  many  new  country  school 
teachers  needed  yearly.  There  were  no  models  after 
which  the  high  school  departments  might  be  moulded, 
and  no  state  or  local  supervisors  who  could  give  the 
necessary  time  to  the  work.  Many  city  superintendents 
were  sceptical  of  the  value  or  practicability  of  such 
training  in  high  schools.  But  in  spite  of  all  obstacles,  a 
beginning  was  made,  and  in  1907-08  ten  departments 
were  reported,  with  an  attendance  increasing  from  182 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year  to  233  at  the  end.  "Work 
in  these  departments  shows  no  new  tendencies/'  wrote 
the  high  school  inspector  in  1908,  "and  unless  there  is 
a  radical  change  there  is  little  hope  that  they  will  mul- 
tiply and  supply  rural  teachers  for  the  state  at  large." 
In  1908-09  the  number  of  departments  was  reduced  to 
seven,  and  there  was  much  discussion  of  the  advisability 
of  establishing  county  training  schools,  which  might  per- 


6       TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

haps  prove  more  successful  than  the  city  departments. 
In  1909-10,  however,  the  stimulus  needed  for  growth 
and  popularity  was  furnished  by  State  Superintendent 
C.  G.  Schulz,  who  ruled  that  those  who  completed  courses 
of  training  in  high  school  departments  should  be  exempt 
from  teachers'  examinations. 

The  effect  was  immediate  and  notable.  In  1909-10 
twenty-eight  schools  maintained  departments,  enrolling 
498  students,  and  in  the  following  year  fifty-six  depart- 
ments enrolled  740  students.  From  that  time  the  growth 
was  steady  and  rapid,  until  at  the  present  time  (1918) 
there  are  no  departments,  maintaining  forty-two  reg- 
ular demonstration  schools.  In  1913  growth  was  further 
stimulated  by  a  legislative  grant  of  $1,000  per  year  to 
each  school,  which  was  again  increased  in  191 5  to  $1,200. 

DIFFERENTIATION 

From  the  beginning  there  had  been  much  discussion 
between  those  who  believed  in  training  through  practice 
and  those  who  did  not.  The  state  inspector  succeeded 
in  191 1  in  establishing  the  practice  method,  which  en- 
tailed a  schedule  of  classes  for  the  cadets,  different  from 
that  of  other  high  school  students.  Therefore  the  stu- 
dents in  the  training  class  came  to  work  separately,  and 
the  training  department  began  to  assume  a  professional 
aspect  and  to  have  an  atmosphere  of  its  own.  Because 
of  the  necessity  of  being  near  the  demonstration  classes, 
the  training  department  was  often  located  in  a  graded  or 
ungraded  room  of  the  local  school;  and  although  this 
practice  has  since  been  found  to  have  serious  faults,  in 
the  beginning  it  did  serve  to  differentiate  the  departments 
from  the  rest  of  the  high  schools  and  to  give  them  at 
least  some  semblance  of  professionalism: 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  MOVEMENT         7 


PERIOD    OF   GROWTH 

The  following  table  indicates  the  growth  since  1905 : 


Comparative  Enrollment. 


1905 

to 
1906 

1909 

to 

1910 

1910 

to 

1911 

1912 

to 
1913 

1913 

to 
1914 

1914 
to 

1915 

1915 

to 
1916 

I9l6 

to 

1917 

1917 

to 

I9I8 

Number  of  departments . 

Total  enrollment 

Students      recommended 
for   first   grade   certifi- 

13 
229 

28 
489 

56 
740 

384 
136 

80 
797 

714 

145 

106 
1.256 

969 
160 

119 
I.4I7 

1,132 

186 

120 
1,667 

1,410 

149 

121 
1,515 

1,441 

no 

1,202 
1,441 

Students     recommended 
for   second   grade   cer- 
tificates 

Mr.  Aiton  retired  from  the  high  school  inspectorship 
in  the  summer  of  1914.  Up  to  this  time  the  directing  of 
the  rural  training  departments  had  been  part  of  the  duties 
of  this  position,  but  it  was  now  made  a  separate  super- 
visorship  and  Miss  Mabel  Carney  was  appointed  to  the 
work.  Miss  Carney  took  hold  of  the  situation  with  a 
firm  hand  and  with  definite  policies,  which  included  spe- 
cial training  in  college  or  normal  school  for  the  directors, 
uniform  and  definite  courses  for  the  departments,  and 
practice  teaching  in  rural  schools.  This  latter  policy  has 
not  only  improved  the  efficiency  of  the  teaching,  but  it 
has  also  taken  departments  out  of  the  grade  buildings  of 
the  local  schools,  where  some  of  them  had  been  located, 
and  replaced  them  in  the  high  school  buildings,  so  that 
training  school  students  find  themselves  again  in  close 
relation  to  other  departments  of  their  high  schools. 

In  191 5,  with  an  increased  grant  of  $1,200  for  depart- 
ments employing  one  teacher,  the  legislature  provided  for 
the  establishment  of  two-teacher  and  three-teacher  de- 
partments receiving  $2,000  and  $2,800  respectively.  At 
present  the  aid  given  is  $1,600,  $2,400.  and  $3,000,  re- 


8       TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

spectively,  for  one,  two  and  three-teacher  schools.    This 
action  has  done  much  to  advance  the  work. 

PROSPECT 

In  the  fall  of  191 7  Miss  Carney  terminated  the  term 
of  her  service  as  supervisor,  having  greatly  improved  the 
departments  in  respect  to  the  teaching  of  high  ideals  and 
to  the  attainment  of  practical  skill  in  rural  teaching.  Dur- 
ing 1917-18  no  one  supervisor  had  charge  of  the  depart- 
ments, but  their  care  was  divided  among  the  different 
supervisors  sent  out  from  the  capital  to  supervise  the 
schools  of  the  state.  With  the  beginning  of  1918-19,  Mr. 
H.  E.  Flynn  became  the  supervisor.  To  the  1 10  depart- 
ments in  operation  at  the  beginning  of  the  current  school 
year  Mr.  Flynn  has  issued  the  following  circular,  which 
clearly  explains  his  proposed  program: 

TEACHER  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS 
PLANS  FOR  1918-19 

The  work  outlined  in  this  circular  will  be  largely  a 
repetition  of  the  plans  of  the  previous  year. 

The  purpose  in  issuing  this  circular  is  to  acquaint 
inexperienced  training  teachers  with  the  purpose  and  or- 
ganization of  the  training  department  work  in  Minnesota, 
pending  the  publication  of  the  manual,  that  there  may 
be  no  waste  of  time  and  energy,  and  to  invite  the  atten- 
tion of  all  training  teachers  to  the  following  phases  of 
the  work  of  the  year  which  merit  consideration: 

We  face  in  the  educational  field  the  same  emergency 
that  confronts  all  other  fields  of  endeavor ;  war  activities 
have  enrolled  our  teachers,  industrial  and  commercial 
opportunities  have  taken  prospective  normal  training 
students. 

The  situation  is  such  that  it  does  not  seem  either  feasi- 
ble or  advisable  to  undertake  new  lines  of  work  for  the 
present  year.    Our  great  problem  in  the  training  depart- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  MOVEMENT         9 

nients  is  a  problem  of  the  public  school  work  in  general, 
that  is,  a  maintenance  of  standards  during  this  unsettled 
period. 

It  would  seem  this  is  an  opportune  time  and  that  the 
work  of  the  year  could  be  spent  most  profitably  in  fur- 
ther investigation  of  and  more  definite  conclusions  with 
reference  to  certain  educational  problems  of  interest  to 
the  departments,  which  have  been  under  investigation 
and  experimentation  by  the  departments  for  the  past 
two  years. 

STATE  COURSE  OF  STUDY 

There  is  need  for  making  the  State  Course  of  Study 
a  special  feature  of  the  year's  work.  The  course  merits 
careful  study  by  normal  students  and  study  and  interpre- 
tation by  training  teachers,  if  young  teachers  are  to  real- 
ize its  effectiveness  in  rural  schools. 

CONTENT  OF  THE   COMMON   BRANCHES 

A  suggested  outline  of  the  subject  matter  of  the  com- 
mon branches  for  rural  schools,  based  on  the  State 
Course  of  Study,  has  been  prepared  by  a  committee  of 
institute  workers.  This  outline  will  be  submitted  for 
your  consideration  in  the  near  future.  (It  is  understood 
that  all  courses  in  the  common  branches  should  include 
instruction  in  both  subject  matter  and  methods  of  teach- 
ing-) 

COURSES    EMPHASIZED 

Much  emphasis  will  be  placed  this  year  upon  Nature 
Study;  Library  Methods;  Minnesota  History;  Pedagogy 
and  Rural  School  Management.  Attention  is  directed 
to  the  suggestive  outline  course  in  science,  already  in  your 
hands,  which  purposes  to  unify  the  work  in  nature  study, 
agriculture  and  hygiene. 

EXTENSION    ACTIVITIES 

Definite  plans  for  following  up  and  assisting  gradu- 
ates should  be  emphasized  this  year,  also  a  complete  card 
index   system    for   alumni    records    should   be   installed. 


io     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 


TEACHERS    INSTITUTES 


Training  teachers  are  encouraged  to  have  a  large  part 
in  institute  work.  Normal  students  should  be  urged  to 
be  in  attendance  at  teachers'  institutes. 


DEMONSTRATION    SCHOOLS 

While  rural  demonstration  schools  cannot  be  urged 
this  year  owing  to  the  uncertainty  as  to  state  aid,  their 
maintenance  is  encouraging  as  a  means  of  establishing 
ideals,  raising  standards,  vitalizing  and  ruralizing  the 
training  work  and  demonstrating  the  possibilities  in  rural 
teaching.  All  training  departments  in  the  state  should 
ultimately  maintain  at  least  one  rural  demonstration 
school. 

WAR  WORK 

Training  departments  will  leave  undone  no  effort  which 
will  aid  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

Training  teachers  can  be  relied  upon  to  cooperate  fully 
in  promoting,  under  the  guidance  of  proper  authority, 
garden  and  canning  club  work,  Red  Cross  activities, 
thrift  work  clubs,  conservation  measures  and  any  other 
line  of  war  emergency  work. 

One  caution  seems  pertinent :  war  emergency  work 
should  not  interrupt  nor  be  substituted  for  regular  school 
and  class  work.  The  war  has  brought  a  great  motive 
for  education  which  should  be  utilized.  It  has  brought 
new  life  to  formal  courses;  it  has  furnished  new  projects 
for  illustrating  educational  principles ;  it  has  sounded  the 
call  of  duty  and  sacrifice.  An  increased  amount  of  war 
work  can  and  should  be  demanded  but  much  of  the  pro- 
ductive war  work  of  the  department  should  be  done  in 
addition  to  the  regular  work.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
also  that  normal  students  need  training  in  and  prepara- 
tion for  those  activities  in  which  the  pupils  of  the  rural 
school  can  most  effectively  participate. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  MOVEMENT        n 


GROWTH    AND    INITIATIVE 

Every  training  teacher  is  requested  to  give  special  con- 
sideration to  one  of  the  progressive  activities  or  experi- 
ments listed  in  the  manual  and  to  embody  her  conclusions 
in  the  special  annual  report  of  the  training  departments. 
It  is  planned  to  acquaint  training  teachers  with  these 
conclusions. 

EXTENSION  ACTIVITIES 

The  supervision  or  "follow-up"  graduate  work  is  an 
activity  essential  to  the  success  of  normal  departments. 
Every  normal  teacher  should  take  at  least  one  day  each 
month  for  visiting  former  graduates  of  the  department 
and  other  rural  teachers.  This  inspection  of  the  high 
school  product  serves  both  as  an  excellent  check  on  the 
class  room  instructor  of  the  normal  teacher  and  as  an 
inspiration  to  the  teacher  in  the  field.  The  following  are 
other  suggestive  activities  for  supervision  and  assisting 
normal  training  graduates. 

i.  The  organization  of  alumni  associations  of  normal 
training  graduates  and  the  holding  of  meetings  of  this 
group. 

2.  The  carrying  of  "first  aid"  to  the  rural  teacher 
through  monthly  circular  letters. 

3.  Frequent  conferences  of  alumni  and  rural  teach- 
ers, such  conferences  to  be  held  on  Saturdays. 

4.  The  setting  aside  of  definite  office  hours  on  Satur- 
day for  personal  conferences  with  rural  teachers  and 
graduates  of  normal  departments. 


II.     THE   TEACHERS   OF  THE   TRAINING 

DEPARTMENTS 

The  teachers  in  charge  of  these  training  departments 
are  on  the  whole  well  prepared,  so  far  as  their  personal 
experience  and  interests  are  concerned,  for  the  work  they 
attempt  to  do.  More  than  half  of  them  have  themselves 
attended  rural  schools,  while  almost  all  have  grown  up 
either  upon  farms  or  in  small  towns  or  cities  *  More- 
over their  education  has  in  most  cases  been  well  directed 
toward  just  such  work  as  they  are  now  engaged  in. 
Eighty-nine  per  cent  of  them  are  high  school  graduates, 
ninety-three  per  cent  are  graduates  of  normal  schools. 
These  women  are  therefore  as  well  prepared  as  the 
average  of  the  best  teachers  in  the  grade  schools  of  the 
largest  cities  of  the  state.  A  smaller  percentage,  33%, 
are  college  graduates.  And  the  demand  for  higher 
scholastic  qualifications  for  department  positions  is  steady 
and  persistent.  Where  successful  experience  was  once 
sufficient  to  secure  one  a  position,  there  must  now  be 
added  to  it  a  definite  amount  of  training,  the  minimum 

*  Familiarity  with  rural  life  and  rural  conditions  is  shown  by  the 
following  table: 

Born  and  reared  in  the  country 50% 

Born  and  reared  in  town 35% 

Born  and  reared  in  country  and  town 17% 

Now  living  in  the  country 19% 

Now  living  in  town 78% 

Now  living  in  country  and  town 3% 

Spend  vacations  in  the  country 34% 

Spend  vacations  in  town 51% 

Spend  vacations  in  country  and  town 15% 

12 


TEACHERS  OF  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS       13 

requirement  of  the  state  department  being  now  normal 
school  graduation. 

MATURITY 

In  point  of  maturity  the  department  teachers  stand  far 
ahead  of  teachers  in  general.  Their  age,  experience  and 
education  contribute  to  their  spirit  of  professionalism. 
Seventy-five  per  cent  of  them  are  over  thirty  years  of 
age;  the  median  age  is  thirty- four.  This  means  that  they 
average  ten  years  older  than  the  typical  American 
teacher.*  And  this  maturity  is  not  without  its  compen- 
sations. The  training  department  teachers  are  not  young 
girls  teaching  young  girls  how  to  teach ;  they  are  women 
of  maturity  and  good  judgment. 

EXPERIENCE 

It  is  not,  however,  entirely  for  their  maturity  and  judg- 
ment that  the  heads  of  departments  are  selected ;  success- 
ful experience  also  is  taken  into  consideration.  Like  the 
great  majority  of  American  teachers  they  began  to  teach 
at  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age,  but  they  were  rarely 
chosen  to  direct  training  work  until  after  they  had  had 
from  ten  to  twelve  years'  experience.  During  this  time 
they  showed  exceptional  skill  as  teachers  and  unusual 
ability  as  community  leaders.  They  do  not,  therefore, 
represent  a  random  sampling  of  the  state's  teaching 
force ;  they  are  a  selected  group. 

PROGRESS 

Facts  secured  from  the  teachers  themselves,  show  that 
there  were  three  definite  steps  or  levels  in  their  experi- 


m  *  The  youngest  training  teacher  in  Minnesota  is  twenty-four;  the  oldest, 
sixty  years  of  age.  In  other  words,  the  youngest  person  in  charge  of  a 
training  department  in  this  state  is  as  old  as  the  average  American 
teacher. 


14     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

ence.  They  began  as  rural  teachers,  were  later  advanced 
to  grade  positions  in  some  small  town  or  city,  and  were 
finally  selected  as  department  teachers.  Less  than  one- 
fourth  of  them  have  had  experience  in  high  schools.  Ad- 
vancement from  level  to  level  was  rapid,  and  changes  at 
each  level  frequent.  Sixty-three  per  cent  of  the  training 
teachers  have  been  in  their  present  positions  two  years  or 
less.  Insecurity  and  shortness  of  tenure  have  militated 
against  the  success  of  the  departments  from  the  first. 
Early  inspectors  protested,  and  more  recent  supervisors 
have  sought  to  correct  these  conditions,  as  yet  largely  in 
vain. 

COMPARED   WITH    HIGH    SCHOOL   TEACHERS 

A  comparison  of  the  education  of  department  teachers 
with  that  of  the  high  school  teachers  with  whom  they  are 
associated  shows  the  following  interesting  set  of  facts: 

Dept.  Teachers    H.  S.  Teachers 

Graduates  of  normal  schools 83%  13% 

Graduates  of  college 23%  74% 

That  the  education  of  the  department  teachers  is  less 
liberal  and  more  narrowly  professional  than  that  of  the 
typical  high  school  teacher  is  also  shown  by  the  fact  that 
approximately  seventy  per  cent  of  the  department  teach- 
ers have  emphasized  professional  subjects  such  as 
history  of  education,  psychology,  school  management, 
technique  of  teaching,  practice  teaching,  and  courses  in 
rural  life,  wherever  election  was  possible  in  their  student 
careers ;  whereas  the  average  high  school  teacher  has  had 
no  more  than  the  required  minimum  of  these  subjects. 
Not  content  with  the  professional  preparation  received 
in  normal  school  or  college,  most  department  teachers 
attend  summer  school — no  group  of  Minnesota  teachers 


TEACHERS  OF  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS       15 

sending  so  large  a  contingent  in  proportion  to  their  num- 
bers. From  two-thirds  to  three-fourths  of  them  are  vol- 
untarily in  summer  school  every  year.  Much  of  this 
diligence  is  due  to  the  inspectors,  who  have  constantly 
emphasized  the  desirability  of  improved  scholarship. 

READING 

Although  the  task  of  managing  a  department  can 
leave  little  time  for  reading,  during  the  last  two  years 
each  teacher  read  an  average  of  six  or  seven  books  on 
teaching.  This  is  far  better  than  teachers  in  general  do, 
as  surveys  (notably  that  of  Illinois)  have  shown.  No 
department  teacher  read  less  than  one  book;  and  only 
four  did  as  little  as  that.  A  few  read  as  many  as  forty 
books  in  two  years.  The  books  reported  include  a  fair 
representation  of  the  standard  professional  literature  of 
the  day,  with  a  noticeable  preference  for  practical  books, 
and  books  on  special  method.  Few  if  any  books  on  psy- 
chology as  such  were  included,  and  none  of  the  older 
standard  theoretical  treatises  on  education. 

PERIODICALS 

A  surprisingly  long  list  of  periodicals  is  read  regularly, 
the  median  number  reported  being  seven.  About  seventy- 
five  per  cent  of  the  teachers  consult  from  five  to  eleven 
journals  or  magazines.  An  analysis  of  the  lists  submitted 
shows  that  these  teachers  read  two  classes  of  magazines 
— reviews,  dealing  mainly  with  current  events,  of  which 
not  one  of  any  prominence  was  omitted  ;  and  professional 
journals.  But  it  is  disappointing  to  find  that  few  if  any 
of  these  teachers  read  regularly  the  standard  literary 
magazines ;  their  titles  are  uniformly  missing  from  the 
lists.  Considering  the  crowded  daily  lives  of  these  teach- 
ers, it  is  at  least  charitable  to  attribute  this  to  lack  of 


16     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

time  rather  than  to  lack  of  interest.  Certainly  much 
credit  is  due  the  teachers  for  finding  time  in  which  to 
"keep  up"  with  the  world's  great  events  and  the  current 
problems  of  their  own  profession. 

RECREATION 

An  inquiry  as  to  recreations  revealed  some  surprising 
conditions.  Of  all  the  teachers,  only  nine  declared  that 
they  had  sufficient  time  for  the  recreation  needed  to  keep 
them  in  good  physical  condition.  Forty-three  said  they 
had  little  or  no  time,  and  the  rest  did  not  even  reply. 
The  kinds  of  recreation  enjoyed  by  the  teachers  showed 
great  divergence  of  taste  and  habit.  Almost  half  gave 
walking  as  their  chief  diversion;  perhaps  also  this  was 
included  in  the  thoughts  of  those  who  vaguely  reported 
"outdoor  sports"  as  their  favorite  recreation.  A  large 
proportion — over  a  third — said  that  reading  formed  their 
chief  means  of  relaxation  from  work.  Nearly  as  many 
reported  social  functions,  and  about  a  fifth  gave  music. 
Only  a  few  could  indulge  in  riding,  boating,  or  games. 
A  small  number  named  the  theater  (usually  "movies"), 
or  sewing,  or  study,  or  "nature" — the  study  of  nature, 
one  presumes.  One  teacher  spent  her  spare  time  in  paint- 
ing china,  another  in  coaching  school  plays,  one  in  kodak 
work,  one  in  manual  training,  and  one  in  housework. 
Some  of  these  "recreations"  sound  to  the  layman  much 
like  work. 

A    MENACE    TO    HEALTH 

The  generalization  suggested  by  these  answers  is  that 
the  teachers  have  not  nearly  the  time  they  should  have 
for  rest  and  change.  A  man  finds  it  difficult  to  conceive 
of  professional  and  informational  reading  and  study  as 


TEACHERS  OF  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS       17 

recreations  for  one  whose  work  directs  the  attention  to 
books  all  day  long.  Considering  the  total  number  of 
teachers  (113),  the  limited  mention  of  the  usual  forms 
of  recreation  can  mean  nothing  but  that  these  women 
have  too  much  work  and  too  little  recreation.  Another 
evidence  of  this  fact  is  found  in  the  replies  to  a  question 
as  to  what  these  teachers  regard  as  the  weakest  feature 
of  the  departments  as  now  organized.  By  far  the  most 
general  answer  was  that  the  overcrowding  of  the  cur- 
riculum, the  impossibility  of  doing  all  the  work  outlined 
in  a  single  year  or  by  one  teacher,  constitutes  the  great- 
est present  difficulty. 

A    THINKING   BODY 

Another  inquiry  was  so  worded  as  to  test  the  attitude 
of  the  teachers  toward  the  possible  problems  of  their 
work.  The  answers  showed  that  they  are  not  only  fully 
aware  of  these  problems,  but  that  they  do  real  thinking 
about  them.  By  far  the  greatest  number  regarded  prac- 
tice teaching  as  the  greatest  problem ;  while  many  others 
found  the  methods  course,  the  means  of  awakening  inter- 
est in  rural  life,  the  follow-up  work  with  graduates,  and 
the  demonstration  school  management  matters  which  de- 
mand close  attention  and  constructive  thought.  Many 
other  problems  were  suggested :  extension  activities,  the 
motivation  of  school  work,  extension  work  with  teachers 
already  in  service,  industrial  courses,  and  study  methods. 

SUMMARY    OF   TYPE 

If  we  attempt  to  gather  the  facts  so  far  presented  into 
compact  form,  we  may  say  that  the  typical  teacher  of  a 
normal  training  department  is  an  American-born  woman 
thirty- four  years  of  age,  who  has  had  direct  experience 


18     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

with  both  rural  and  town  life.  She  has  attended  both 
town  and  country  elementary  schools,  is  a  graduate  of 
high  school  and  normal  school,  and  has  attended  one  or 
more  summer  schools  at  the  state  university.  In  the  field 
of  education  she  has  studied  history  of  education,  psy- 
chology, school  management,  general  method,  practice 
teaching,  and  courses  in  rural  life.  Her  experience  in 
teaching  has  been  varied  and  successful,  for  she  has 
taught  in  rural  schools  about  two  years  and  in  the 
grades  in  town  about  five  years,  with  advances  of  salary 
in  both  cases.  She  is  ambitious  and  strenuous  in  seeking 
self-improvement  during  vacations  as  well  as  during  the 
school  year.  She  has  too  little  time  for  recreation,  and 
is  working  in  the  midst  of  a  rather  bewildering  mass  of 
very  real  problems. 

FEMINIZATION 

There  is  one  respect  in  which  the  personnel  of  the 
teaching  body  might  be  changed  with  advantage  to  the 
system.  At  present  the  teachers  are  all  women.  Men 
who  otherwise  might  have  responded  to  the  appeals  of 
such  positions  have  been  attracted  to  more  remunerative 
kinds  of  work.  It  would  seem  that  the  desirability  of 
having  men  as  well  as  women  on  the  teaching  force  which 
prepares  teachers  for  country  schools  can  scarcely  be 
questioned ;  the  time  has  passed  when  either  sex  should 
monopolize  any  educational  field  except  that  perhaps  of 
primary  teaching.  Whether  this  difference  will  continue 
to  exist  depends  upon  a  number  of  forces  and  conditions, 
over  many  of  which  we  have  little  control.  But  there 
are  several  things  that  can  be  done  that  will  hasten  the 
day  when  a  few  men  at  least  will  prepare  themselves  for 
work  in  this  particular  field. 


TEACHERS  OF  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS       19 

COMPENSATION 

In  the  first  place,  teaching  in  such  positions  can  he 
made  financially  attractive  enough  to  compete,  for  in- 
stance, with  teaching  in  small  towns  as  principal.  At 
present  the  salaries — $1,000  to  $1,200 — paid  teachers  of 
training  departments  have  attracted  competent  women 
but  not  competent  men.  The  subsidies  paid  by  the  state 
are  fixed  by  legislative  action  and  can  not  easily  be 
changed,  while  the  local  authorities  are  loath  to  raise  sal- 
aries by  the  imposition  of  higher  taxes.  Then  there  are 
certain  administrative  difficulties  which  complicate  the 
situation.  It  must  be  remembered  that  these  departments 
are  maintained  in  the  local  high  school  buildings  and 
that  the  training  teachers,  although  to  a  certain  extent 
administratively  separated,  actually  associate  with  the 
high  school  teachers.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that 
high  school  teachers  have  had  on  the  average,  at  least 
two  years  more  of  academic  training  than  the  department 
teachers;  and  that  they  receive  smaller  salaries  in  many 
schools.  The  training  school  teacher  is  rarely  considered 
competent  to  offer  instruction  in  regular  high  school 
classes;  but  her  pay  is  higher  than  that  of  women  who 
can  and  do.  All  of  which  means  that  the  local  super- 
intendent whose  conventional  judgment  favors  academic 
training  is  not  likely  to  recommend  or  to  start  a  prop- 
aganda in  favor  of  increasing  the  salaries  of  department 
teachers.  And  yet  these  salaries  as  well  as  those  of  the 
high  school  teachers  must  be  increased  if  present  stand- 
ards are  to  be  maintained  and  advanced. 

CHANGE   OF   LOCATION 

Changes  in  salaries  do  not  furnish  the  only  possible 
solution  of  the  difficulty.    The  number  of  training  depart- 


20     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

ment  teachers  can  be  decreased  and  the  qualifications 
raised  through  location  in  consolidated  country  schools. 
This  movement  has  begun  in  Minnesota,  which  has  already 
223  consolidated  districts  with  about  fifty  others  to  be 
added  shortly.  A  consolidated  school  is  a  more  natural 
center  for  a  training  department  than  a  town  or  city  sys- 
tem because  it  is  more  directly  and  intimately  associated 
with  country  life.  If  these  schools  were  more  utilized  the 
constantly  recurring  criticism  of  county  superintendents, 
that  the  departments  are  remote  from  rural  life,  would 
be  obviated.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  criticism  scarcely 
applies  now  to  the  increasing  number  of  departments 
which  have  rural  demonstration  schools,  or  to  those  which 
require  more  than  the  minimum  of  two  weeks  of  country 
school  practice  work. 

THE    COMFORTS   OF    HOME 

A  fourth  factor  which  would  be  of  incalculable  value 
in  improving  the  general  situation  would  be  the  building 
and  maintaining  of  teacherages  at  such  consolidated 
schools.  A  few  communities  in  the  state  have  done  this 
already.  The  teacherage  gives  permanence  and  dignity 
to  the  position  of  rural  school  teacher  which  otherwise  it 
could  not  have. 

The  factors  and  conditions  just  discussed  are  of  funda- 
mental importance.  There  are  at  least  two  other  condi- 
tions which  must  be  changed  before  an  ideal  situation 
can  be  approached.  The  first  is  the  reduction  of  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  duties  in  the  departments.  In  addition  to  con- 
ducting reviews  in  the  common  branches,  the  training 
teacher  is  expected  to  teach  physiology,  school  manage- 
ment, rural  sociology,  both  special  and  general  method ;  to 
organize  and  supervise  practice  teaching,  either  in  the 
grades  or  in  a  demonstration  school  a  few  miles  away; 


TEACHERS  OF  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS       21 

to  give  her  students  an  insight  into  rural  life  and  its  needs, 
and  to  inspire  them  with  enthusiasm  for  teaching  in  the 
country ;  to  visit  former  graduates  and  confer  with  them 
on  their  work;  and  to  conduct  an  information  bureau  for 
the  rural  teachers  for  miles  around.  She  is  also  expected 
to  participate  in  the  affairs  of  the  school  in  which  the  de- 
partment is  located,  write  papers  for  the  country  teachers' 
institute,  speak  at  farmers'  clubs,  and  attend  rural  life 
conferences.  It  is  obvious  that  the  specialization  of  effort 
and  attainment  which  characterizes  well  organized  and 
well  conducted  training  institutions  is  impossible,  and 
that  few  men  with  an  eye  to  a  career  care  to  scatter  their 
mental  resources  by  serving  in  such  a  situation. 

ATTEMPTING   THE    IMPOSSIBLE 

* 

Ideal  conditions  for  the  training  of  teachers  can  not 
exist  where  the  training  teacher  must  perforce  do  the 
work  in  a  superficial  way.  Scholarship  can  not  be  fos- 
tered when  teachers  are  driven  from  one  task  to  another. 
Although  a  very  commendable  spirit  characterizes  the 
teacher-training  group,  that  institutionality  which  char- 
acterizes a  truly  professional  school  is  not  and  can  not 
be  present.  Every  essential  condition  except  the  spirit 
and  willingness  of  the  teaching  force  is  absent.  The 
curriculum  is  only  one  year  long;  it  consists  of  many 
subjects ;  the  students  are  not  actually  segregated  from 
the  high  school  students  whose  ideals  and  aims  are  very 
foreign  to  those  of  teachers ;  and  the  teacher  is  bur- 
dened with  endless  tasks  and  responsibilities. 

TENURE 

The  second  condition  which  needs  changing  is  that  of 
tenure  of  office.  If  the  value  of  the  departments  is  to  be 
fully  realized  in  their  supervisory  relation  to  graduates 


22     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

who  teach  in  the  rural  schools,  it  is  clear  that  department 
heads  must  stay  longer  in  one  place  than  has  hitherto 
been  the  case.  In  a  number  of  instances  it  was  found 
that  scarcely  any  relation  with  teachers  in  the  field,  of  a 
positively  helpful  kind,  existed  because  the  teacher  in 
charge  did  not  know  the  graduates  of  the  previous  year. 
In  one  case  it  appeared  that  the  teacher  kept  up  a  cor- 
respondence with  the  graduates  of  her  former  depart- 
ment in  another  part  of  the  state,  but  had  not  been  able 
to  meet  the  graduates  of  the  school  in  which  she  then 
taught.  If  heads  of  departments  are  really  to  be  held 
responsible  for  results,  as  city  boards  of  education  hold 
a  superintendent  responsible  for  results,  then  it  seems 
obvious  that  these  heads  should  be  given  a  contract  hold- 
ing for  several  years,  providing  for  an  adequate  salary 
and  offering  incentives  for  really  constructive  work 
which  would  result  in  systematic  improvement  in  the  sur- 
rounding country  schools. 


III.     THE  STUDENTS  IN  HIGH   SCHOOL 
TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS 

THEY    ARE    GIRLS'    SCHOOLS 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  a  small  proportion — about 
4% — of  boys  among  the  students  of  the  training  depart- 
ments, but  they  have  now  almost  entirely  ceased  to  attend. 
Of  the  8%  of  men  teachers  in  the  rural  schools  just  be- 
fore the  war,  very  few  had  received  their  training  in  this 
way. 

AGE 

The  girls  who  compose  the  student  body  are  of  a  fairly 
uniform  type.  Immature  as  they  are,  they  are  older  now 
than  their  predecessors  a  few  years  back,  when  students 
commonly  entered  at  sixteen.  About  a  quarter  are  seven- 
teen years  old;  fully  40%  are  eighteen,  and  the  rest  are 
nineteen  or  twenty,  with  an  occasional  student — usually 
one  who  has  had  one  year's  teaching  experience — who  is 
twenty-one  or  over.  In  191 7- 18,  only  26  out  of  1,147 
students  were  under  eighteen  years  of  age. 

ABILITY 

These  girls  are  of  about  average  ability.  All  of  them 
have  finished  three  years  of  high  school  work,  and  some 
are  high  school  graduates.  The  entrance  requirements 
now  weed  out  a  class  of  students  formerly  received  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  up  the  number  of  students  to 
that  required  for  receiving  state  aid.     These  poor  stu- 

23 


24     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

dents  absorbed  so  much  of  the  time  and  energy  of  the 
teachers  that  really  good  students  could  not  receive  their 
proper  share  of  attention. 

BACKGROUND 

Rather  more  than  half  the  girls  come  from  farm 
homes ;  the  rest  are  daughters  of  business  men,  railroad 
men  or  occasionally  of  professional  men.  Most  of  the 
farmers'  daughters  have  attended  country  schools  until 
ready  for  high  school ;  but  the  town-bred  girls  have  rarely 
even  visited  a  country  school  and  have  never  attended 
one.  Probably  it  is  their  imitation  of  their  town  teachers, 
as  much  as  any  omission  of  rural  school  method  in  their 
training,  which  leads  to  the  frequent  and  banal  criticism 
that  these  girls  when  they  become  teachers  use  town 
methods  in  their  work. 

NATIONALITY 

A  large  proportion  of  the  students  are  of  Scandinavian 
or  of  German  parentage ;  very  few  French  and  very  few 
Scotch  names  appear  in  the  lists.  In  an  average  group 
of  ten  girls  four  are  Swedish  or  Danish,  two  German, 
and  one  each  American,  Irish  and  English;  one  is  of 
mixed  parentage.  Considering  the  proportion  of  the 
various  elements  in  the  population  of  the  state,  the  Eng- 
lish, Irish  and  Scandinavian  appear  to  contribute  more 
than  their  share  to  this  service.  The  foreign  character 
of  the  attendance,  together  with  the  proportion  from 
farm  homes,  leads  one  familiar  with  Minnesota  rural  life 
to  hope  that  the  girls  of  the  second  and  third  generation 
of  foreign  settlers  in  the  state  are  using  these  training 
schools  not  only  to  better  their  own  condition,  but  also 
to  take  back  American  ideals  into  their  own  communities. 
The  English  composition  and  grammar  assume  new  im- 


STUDENTS  IN  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS      25 

portance  in  the  light  of  this  largely  foreign  attendance, 
destined  for  service  in  communities  also  largely  foreign; 
while  American  history  and  the  teaching  of  our  national 
songs,  traditions,  and  civic  ideals  become  an  important 
part  of  the  necessary  work. 

RELIGIOUS   AFFILIATIONS 

Ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the  girls  are  members  of  some 
church,  although  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  people  of 
Minnesota  are  not  church  members.  Although  66  per 
cent  of  the  students  are  either  German  or  Scandinavian, 
only  34  per  cent  are  Lutherans.  Over  a  fifth  are  Meth- 
odists, about  a  sixth  are  Roman  Catholics,  and  smaller 
numbers  are  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  Episcopalians, 
Evangelicals,  or  adherents  of  other  smaller  denomina- 
tions. Evidently  the  field  of  rural  teaching  appeals  to  an 
earnest,  conservative,  and  religiously  minded  class  of 
girls. 

WAR   CONDITIONS   AND   STANDARDS 

Although  it  has  been  the  hope  of  the  supervisors  to 
raise  entrance  standards  steadily,  the  peculiar  conditions 
brought  on  by  the  war  have  made  it  necessary  in  191 7-18 
and  1918-19  to  waive  even  those  rules  which  had  been 
already  put  into  force.  As  a  result,  although  certain 
minimum  requirements  are  still  enforced,  there  are  just 
now  rather  a  larger  number  of  inadequately  prepared 
students  in  the  departments  than  for  the  last  two  or  three 
years.  Each  of  these  students  has  had,  however,  three 
years  of  high  school  English,  two  of  mathematics,  one 
of  science,  one  of  history,  and  one  of  domestic  science. 
Upon  the  return  of  normal  conditions  the  entrance  re- 
quirements are  to  be  brought  up  to  at  least  the  equivalent 
of  three  full  years  of  high  school  work. 


IV.    THE  CURRICULUM 

In  the  beginning  there  was  no  standard  curriculum; 
each  teacher  taught  the  subjects  which  she  thought  were 
needed,  or  which  her  individual  abilities  enabled  her  to 
teach.  It  came  gradually  to  be  understood  that  the  course 
should  include  some  professional  study  as  well  as  the 
review  of  the  common  branches  which  at  first  formed  the 
core  of  the  curriculum.  Practice  teaching  was  introduced 
as  a  part  of  this  professional  study  early  in  the  history 
of  the  movement,  but  as  late  as  1913-14  over  half  of  the 
departments  had  little  practice  material  except  the  sub- 
normal pupils  of  the  ungraded  room  of  the  city  system, 
which  was  commonly  granted  to  the  departments  for  ex- 
perimentation. But  in  that  year  thirty-five  departments 
used  real  rural  schools  for  practice  teaching;  and  this 
plan  has  now  been  adopted  in  all  the  departments,  in 
many  cases  with  well-controlled  demonstration  schools. 

STANDARDIZATION    BEGUN 

As  Miss  Carney  was  a  specialist  in  rural  school 
method  and  rural  life,  the  professional  work  under  her 
guidance  was  specialized  as  far  as  possible  to  meet 
the  peculiar  needs  of  the  country.  In  the  years  1914- 
191 7  the  widely  varying  courses  became  fairly  well  uni- 
fied, with  a  total  of  15,300  recitation  minutes  allowed  for 
the  study  of  the  common  branches,  and  4,800  for  psy- 

26 


THE  CURRICULUM  27 

chology  and  school  management.*  The  following  table 
shows  the  proportionate  time  allotment  for  the  seven 
studies  which  were  in  1918  provided  for  by  law: 

Number  of  Clock  Hours 
Subjects  Devoted  to  Recitation 

American  history 40 

Arithmetic 40 

Civics 20 

Geography 40 

Grammar 40 

Physiology 20 

Reading 40 

This  makes  a  total  of  240  clock  hours  required  during 
the  last  few  years  in  the  common  branches,  which  is  three 
times  as  much  time  as  is  required  for  strictly  professional 
studies.  Besides  the  required  courses,  many  others  have 
been  offered  in  the  departments,  although  the  freedom 
allowed  the  director  in  this  respect  is  dwindling  under 
the  standardization  of  the  state  department.  Among  the 
courses  offered  in  different  schools  until  recently  were 
these : 

1.  English  composition  12.  Calisthenics 

2.  Spelling  13.  Phonics 

3.  Agriculture  14.  Story- telling 

4.  Drawing  15.  Play 

5.  Domestic  science  16.  Art 

6.  Manual  Training  17.  Scrap-book  making 

7.  Construction  18.  School  law 

8.  Children's  literature  19.  Dramatization 

9.  Sewing  20.  Community  clubs 

10.  Seat  work  21.  Gardening 

11.  Chart  making 

THE    PRESENT    REQUIREMENTS 

The  requirements  for  1917-18,  which  hold  also  for  the 
present  year,  are  outlined  in  the  plans  sent  out  by  the 

*  Appendix  5  shows  the  comparative  time  allotment  for  study  of  the 
common  branches  in  the  training  departments  of  fifteen  states,  taken  from 
the  thesis,  Analysis  of  the  Curriculums  of  Teacher-Training  Departments 
in  the  High  Schools  of  Eleven  States  and  of  the  County  Training  Schools 
of  Three  States,  by  Thomas  J.  Smart,  University  of  Minnesota,  1918. 


28     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 


present  inspector.  Special  emphasis  is  placed  upon  na- 
ture study,  library  methods,  the  history  of  Minnesota,  and 
methods  and  management  of  rural  schools.  An  outline 
course  for  unified  work  in  nature  study,  agriculture  and 
hygiene  has  been  prepared  and  sent  out  to  the  department 
heads.  The  uniform  course  for  all  departments  utilizes 
a  combination  term  arrangement,  common  branches  being 
given  in  semester  courses  and  professional  and  industrial 
subjects  in  terms  of  twelve  weeks  each.  The  recitation 
periods  are  all  forty  minutes  in  length.  The  following 
table  shows  the  scheme  clearly: 

Two-Term  Subjects 


1st  Semester  (18  Weeks) 
Observation  and  Teaching 
Geography 
Arithmetic 
Reading  (>£  Period) 
General  Exercises-(20 
Minutes) 


2nd  Semester  (18  Weeks) 

Teaching 

Language  Methods  and  Gram- 
mar 

History  (12  Weeks),  Civics  (3 
Weeks),  and  Minnesota  His- 
tory (3  Weeks) 

Reading  (yA  Period) 

General  Exercises  (20  Minutes) 


12  Weeks 
First 
Pedagogy 
Nature  Study  {yi) 
Industrial  Arts 
Primary  Hand- 
work {%) 


Three-Term  Subjects 


12  Weeks 
Second 
Rural  School 

Management 
Hygiene  (}4) 
Industrial  Arts 
Hot  Lunch  (J4) 
Primary  Hand- 
work 


12  Weeks 
Third 

Country  Life 
{}/2  Period) 

Nature  Study 
\%  Period) 

Industrial"Arts 
Drawing  (}4) 
Intermediate  Hand- 
work (}4) 


From  two  to  three  hours  of  outside  preparation  are 
expected  of  each  student  each  day ;  but  the  practice  teach- 
ing often  makes  it  necessary  to  extend  this  allowance. 
An  average  of  forty  minutes  of  teaching  per  day  through- 
out the  year  is  required ;  but  as  the  teaching  does  not 
begin  at  once,  the  actual  time  given  in  practice  days  is 
much  greater. 


THE  CURRICULUM  29 

THE    MINOR    SUBJECTS 

A  special  schedule  for  general  exercises  is  sent  out  to 
the  teachers,  as  follows:  Music  (36  lessons — once  per 
week)  ;  Current  Events  (36  lessons — once  per  week)  ; 
Library  Methods  (36  lessons — once  per  week  or  con- 
secutively) ;  Reports  on  professional  books  and  articles 
(36  lessons — once  per  week)  ;  and  Penmanship  (36  les- 
sons— once  per  week  or  consecutively).  It  will  be  seen 
that  the  general  exercise  time  is  so  economically  used  as 
to  leave  little  time  for  incidental  recreation  or  entertain- 
ment. Certainly  the  subjects  treated  in  this  daily  twenty- 
minute  period  are  important  ones,  and  provision  made 
in  this  way  insures  at  least  an  introduction  to  them  in  a 
badly  crowded  program. 

DAILY   PROGRAM 

A  suggested  daily  program,  planned  for  a  one-teacher 
department  with  one  practice  group,  begins  the  day's 
work  at  nine  o'clock  with  the  general  exercise  period. 
Four  forty-minute  periods  then  follow,  devoted  respec- 
tively to  arithmetic,  geography,  pedagogy  and  nature 
study  (or  primary  handwork).  An  hour  and  a  half  is 
allowed  for  the  noon  intermission,  after  which  comes 
the  twenty-minute  half-period  of  reading  which  goes 
through  the  whole  year.  Forty  minutes  of  teaching  prac- 
tice follow  this,  and  after  that  a  half-hour  is  allowed  for 
conference  on  the  teaching.  The  day  closes  at  3:30  or 
4  p.  m.,  with  from  thirty  to  sixty  minutes  of  supervised 
study,  preferably  in  preparation  for  teaching.  When 
there  are  two  practice  groups,  that  is,  when  the  enroll- 
ment exceeds  ten,  a  modification  is  made  to  admit  of  one 
teaching  period  in  the  morning  and  one  in  the  after- 
noon. 


30     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

PRACTICE   TEACHING 

The  practice  work  itself  requires  the  most  careful  plan- 
ning. An  effort  is  now  being  made  to  make  this  work 
fairly  uniform  throughout  the  state,  the  suggestions  being 
based  upon  the  experiences  of  the  last  few  years.  Two 
weeks  at  the  beginning  are  spent  in  observation,  both  in 
town  and  rural  schools ;  the  remaining  sixteen  weeks  of 
the  first  semester  in  group  practice.  These  groups  are 
made  by  subdividing  whole  grade  classes  in  town  schools, 
each  student  teaching  a  group  after  writing  individual 
plans.  The  various  types  of  lessons  are  to  be  clearly  dif- 
ferentiated at  this  time,  and  especial  emphasis  put  first 
on  the  drill  lesson  and  later  on  the  development  lesson. 
It  is  suggested  that  a  month  each  be  given  to  arithmetic, 
reading,  language  and  phonics,  and  geography;  but  of 
course  this  plan  must  often  be  modified  to  suit  local  con- 
ditions. In  the  second  semester  room  teaching  is  begun, 
and  continues  for  eight  weeks.  The  students  now  have 
charge  of  entire  classes  in  grade  rooms,  sometimes  teach- 
ing two  elates  of  twenty  minutes  each  per  day.  The 
lesson  plai*^ -which  at  first  were  required  to  be  written 
out  completely,  are  now  made  in  outline.  The  suggested 
subjects  are  language  and  grammar  for  one  month  and 
history,  geography  or  reading  for  the  second.  The  eight 
weeks  in  the  town  grades  are  followed  by  two  weeks 
of  rural  school  practice,  either  in  a  special  demonstration 
school  or  in  an  ordinary  country  school  selected  for  this 
purpose.  Then  there  follow  eight  weeks  given  to  inten- 
sive primary  work  with  a  class  of  beginners,  and  such 
miscellaneous  practice  as  the  director  may  see  fit  to  as- 
sign. The  scheme  aims  to  give  a  graded  and  varied  prac- 
tice work,  such  as  should  fit  the  students  to  do  any  type 
of  teaching  required  in  their  schools  with  at  least  some 


THE  CURRICULUM  31 

degree  of  the  confidence  which  comes  with  experience. 

In  an  investigation  carried  on  in  1917-18,  it  was  found 
that  sixty-six  of  eighty-one  department  directors  report- 
ing kept  Saturday  office  hours,  on  from  one  to  four  Sat- 
urdays per  month.  Any  rural  teacher  might  come  and 
present  her  problems  for  consideration  and  advice.  The 
teachers  seem  to  have  availed  themselves  of  this  oppor- 
tunity, for  2,200  separate  cases  considered  are  on  record. 
These  included  perplexities  of  discipline  or  management, 
problems  of  community  life,  questions  of  school  improve- 
ment, sanitation  and  equipment,  but  by  far  the  largest 
number  (64%)  dealt  with  actual  teaching  problems,  in- 
cluding questions  on  professional  reading. 

Although  climatic  conditions  make  it  very  difficult  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  state,  practically  every  teacher 
visits  country  schools  for  purposes  of  supervision  and 
helpful  criticism.  This  is  done  sometimes  with  the  coun- 
ty superintendent,  sometimes  with  a  state  inspector,  often 
with  students  in  the  departments,  sometimes  alone ;  and 
in  one  case  at  least,  with  a  school  board.  There  is  clearly 
little  uniformity  in  the  norms  used  for  judging  teaching, 
for  practically  every  standard  of  judgment  appears  in  the 
details  sent  in  by  the  teachers.  Most  of  them  state  that 
they  look  for  interest  in  the  pupils,  good  discipline,  good 
questioning,  good  housekeeping  on  the  teacher's  part, 
and  skillful  assignments.  The  teacher's  attitude,  the  pro- 
gram, the  school  organization,  and  the  teacher's  person- 
ality and  preparation  receive  attention,  as  well  as  a  long 
list  of  other  points,  to  be  found  in  the  list  of  tests  used 
by  supervisors  everywhere.  No  standard  blanks  are  used 
for  the  purpose,  and  considerable  initiative  and  much 
good  sense  appear  in  the  reports.  Constructive  criticism, 
given  on  the  spot  and  adapted  to  the  concrete  situation 


32      TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

actually  observed,  must  help  greatly  to  raise  the  standard 
of  school  work  in  the  state. 

Not  only  do  the  teachers  bring  their  knowledge  di- 
rectly to  bear  upon  the  instruction  and  management  of  the 
schools  visited,  but  they  check  up  also  the  attitude  of  the 
teachers  in  community  work.  In  19 18-19,  for  instance,  it 
was  found  that  twenty-six  teachers  had  taken  an  active 
part  in  farmers'  clubs,  that  twenty  had  arranged  com- 
munity programs,  that  eight  had  visited  every  home  in 
the  district ;  and  while  these  figures  do  not  sound  impos- 
ing when  the  size  and  population  of  Minnesota  is  consid- 
ered, they  show  that  a  beginning  is  being  made  in  the 
practical  training  of  teachers  for  community  service.  But 
six  teachers  were  reported  as  apparently  indifferent  to 
the  appreciation  of  community  needs. 

It  is  difficult  to  classify  or  to  appraise  the  social  activi- 
ties carried  on  by  the  teachers,  because  of  their  great 
variety  and  the  overlapping  of  features.  Entertainments 
are  engineered  for  children,  teachers,  parents,  and  whole 
communities.  Social  life,  often  either  lacking  or  danger- 
ous in  country  districts,  is  stimulated  or  guided,  and  co- 
operation urged  and  fostered.  The  alumnae  of  the  de- 
partments are  held  together  by  correspondence  and  by 
reunions,  and  warmth  of  personal  interest  infused  into 
a  service  which  has  too  often  been  formal,  mechanical 
and  dissociated  from  friendship  and  social  intercourse. 
The  state  department  has  a  list  of  such  activities,  which 
is  suggestive  and  helpful ;  but  in  no  phase  of  the  work 
is  there  more  variety  and  initiative,  nor  more  of  adapta- 
tion to  local  needs. 

This  is  in  brief  the  curriculum  prescribed  by  the  state 
for  the  training  departments.  In  addition  to  what  is  out- 
lined, some  teachers  either  themselves  present  certain  fa- 
vorite subjects,  or  secure  the  services  of  special  teachers 


THE  CURRICULUM  33 

in  their  high  schools  to  teach  agriculture,  household 
science  or  shop  work.  The  forthcoming  complete  cur- 
riculum gives  in  more  detail  the  plans  to  be  followed  in 
the  coming  year. 

A  COMPARISON   WITH  OTHER  STATES 

In  1917-18,  Mr.  Thomas  J.  Smart  made  a  careful 
comparative  study  *  of  the  curriculum  in  fourteen 
states  which  have  established  local  training  schools  for 
rural  teachers.  Iowa,  Kansas,  Maryland,  Missouri,  Ne- 
braska, New  York,  Vermont,  Oklahoma,  Oregon  and 
Virginia  maintain  these  schools  in  connection  with  city 
systems  as  does  Minnesota;  Michigan,  Ohio,  and  Wis- 
consin use  a  system  of  county  training  schools.  In  these 
schools  a  total  of  forty-five  separate  listed  subjects  are 
taught,  although  probably  some  of  these  subjects  sep- 
arately listed  are  practically  the  same, — as  for  instance, 
the  "Teaching  Process"  listed  in  Oregon,  the  "Theory  of 
Teaching"  in  Wisconsin,  the  "Science  of  Teaching"  in 
Oklahoma,  and  plain  old-fashioned  pedagogy  still  taught 
in  Iowa,  Michigan,  Minnesota,  and  Nebraska.  The 
amount  of  required  recitation  varies  widely,  from  Ver- 
mont which  prescribes  only  19,400  minutes  per  year  spent 
in  recitation  to  Virginia  which  prescribes  103,670.  This 
means  that  in  a  thirty-six  weeks  year,  Vermont  prescribes 
less  than  two  clock  hours  per  day,  whereas  Virginia  has 
an  iron-clad  schedule  of  about  nine  and  a  half  hours 
daily.  Kansas,  which  prescribes  91,174  recitation  min- 
utes, comes  nearest  to  Virginia. 

THE    USUAL    SUBJECTS 

In  the  selection  of  studies  there  is  the  greatest  diver- 
sity, but  eleven  studies  appear  in  the  curriculums  of  half 


On    file   at   the    University    of    Minnesota. 


34      TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

or  more  of  the  states.  These  eleven  studies,  in  the  order 
of  the  time  allotted  to  them  in  the  state  requirement,  are : 
American  history,  agriculture,  psychology,  domestic 
science,  grammar,  arithmetic,  civics,  school  management, 
reading,  geography,  and  physiology.  It  will  be  noted 
that  psychology,  physiology  and  domestic  science  alone  of 
this  list  do  not  appear  in  the  Minnesota  requirements ; 
and  they  are  probably  included  to  some  extent  in  the 
pedagogy,  hygiene  and  hot  lunch  demonstrations  given 
in  this  state.  Eight  states — New  York,  Iowa,  Kansas, 
Maryland,  Michigan,  Nebraska,  Ohio  and  Wisconsin — 
require  more  time  spent  in  common  branches  than  Min- 
nesota; Missouri,  Oklahoma  and  Virginia  have  about 
equal  requirements,  while  Oregon  and  Vermont  fall  be- 
low. Some  states  require  the  study  of  other  subjects  in 
the  common  branches ;  these  include  drawing,  mental 
arithmetic,  music,  penmanship  and   spelling. 

DIFFERENTIATION    FROM    HIGH    SCHOOL 

The  training  departments  in  many  states  are  little  dif- 
ferentiated from  ordinary  high  schools,  to  judge  from 
the  subjects  listed  in  their  curriculums — subjects  such  as 
algebra,  economics,  English,  foreign  language,  geometry, 
European  history,  and  physics.  In  Minnesota  the  entire 
program  is  planned  with  one  end  in  view — to  train  the 
students  directly  for  country  school  teaching.  The 
courses  in  country  school  management  and  in  country  life 
problems  (note  the  motivation  implied  in  the  words  used) 
are  examples  of  the  concrete  way  in  which  the  specific 
needs  of  rural  education  have  been  realized  and  answered. 

SPELLING 

Of  the  courses  in  the  common  branches,  Minnesota 
includes  in  some  way  every  study  which  is  given  in  other 


THE  CURRICULUM  35 

states,  except  spelling,  which  is  "incidentally"  taught. 
For  some  reason  this  is  omitted.  Minnesota  is  not  alone 
in  its  omission ;  the  five  states  that  do  include  it  are 
Maryland,  Nebraska,  New  York,  Ohio  and  Wisconsin. 
Of  these  states  New  York  alone  recognizes  spelling  in 
its  syllabus,  and  gives  hints  as  to  problems  and  methods 
of  teaching. 

PRECEPT   AND   PRACTICE 

The  Minnesota  curriculum  as  actually  presented  fails 
to  realize  the  professional  character  which  is  ascribed  to 
it  in  the  directions  of  the  state  supervisor.  Perhaps  in  no 
state  has  the  attitude  of  the  state  authorities  been  made 
clearer  on  this  matter.*  Unlike  Virginia,  which  says  to 
its  training  teachers,  "No  special  attention  should  be  paid 
to  method,"  Minnesota  says,  "Method  should  be  empha- 
sized and  all  instruction  given  from  the  teaching  point  of 
view."  The  teachers  are  expected  to  present  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  common  branches  in  such  a  way  as  con- 
stantly to  teach  method  in  an  incidental  but  definite  way. 
Both  by  example  and  by  precept  they  are  expected  to 
combine  the  special  method  appropriate  to  country  school 
work  with  actual  instruction  in  arithmetic,  history,  or 
grammar.  But  observers  agree  that  frequently 
very  little  method  and  very  little  rural  adaptation  ac- 
tually enter  into  the  teaching  of  the  common  branches, 
which  are  often  pursued  in  the  most  formal  and  text- 
bound  way.  This  subject  is  referred  to  again  in  the 
chapter  on  instruction. 

PRACTICE    TEACHING 

The  nature  of  the  observation  and  practice  teaching 
required  in  Minnesota  is  another  matter  in  which  effec- 


*  Smart,    T.    J.,    Analysis    of    the    Curriculums    of    Teacher-Training    De- 
partments,   etc. 


36     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

tive  adaptation  to  rural  conditions  is  at  least  stressed  in 
the  supervisor's  directions ;  and  observation  shows  that 
in  this  respect  practice  is  in  fair  accord  with  precept. 
Both  subjects  seem  to  be  adapted  to  a  specific  training 
for  rural  teaching  better  in  Minnesota  than  in  other 
states.  Nebraska  is  the  only  other  state  that  nominally 
requires  observation  in  rural  schools,  although  Iowa  and 
Missouri  have  recommended  it.  In  practice  teaching, 
which  is  not  even  required  in  Kansas,  Missouri  and  Ne- 
braska, Minnesota  stands  alone  in  having  made  definite 
provision  for  actual  practice  in  real  rural  schools,  and  in 
requiring  such  practice  of  every  student. 


V.     INSTRUCTION 

I.    The  Problem 

The  content  of  the  curriculum  used  throughout  the 
state  has  been  shown.  As  now  organized,  it  is  a  notable 
example  of  concentrated  inclusion,  embracing  a  remark- 
able array  of  subjects  and  training  processes  so  arranged 
as  to  be  covered  in  a  short  time.  Only  the  ablest  teach- 
ing can  avail  to  realize  the  objects  of  such  a  curriculum, 
designed  to  furnish  in  one  year  the  essential  parts  of  a 
two  or  three  year  normal  school  course. 

THE   TASK 

The  curriculum  which  is  to  be  covered  in  the  space  of 
one  school  year,  includes  a  study,  ostensibly  a  review, 
of  the  eight  subjects  which  are  commonly  taught  in  rural 
schools  in  Minnesota.  As  the  students  are  often  very  ill 
prepared  in  these  subjects,  the  review  becomes  often  a 
strenuous  presentation  of  practically  new  material,  espe- 
cially in  the  elementary  content  studies — arithmetic, 
grammar,  history,  and  geography.  The  versatile  train- 
ing teacher  must  be  sufficiently  prepared  in  these  subjects 
to  give  normal  school  instruction  in  them ;  for  after  the 
subject  matter  is  mastered  the  method  of  teaching  is  also 
to  be  imparted.* 


*  The  High  School  Board,  the  duties  of  which  since  1918  are  included 
with  those  of  the  new  State  Board  of  Education,  requires  that  after  a  thor- 
ough review  of  the  essentials,  the  students  shall  plan  a  course  in  each  for 
the  several  grades  of  the  country  schools;  that  they  shall  then  be  given 
"definite"  work  in  method  for  these  several  grades;  and  lastly,  that  they 
shall  give  special  attention  to  the  adaptation  to  rural  conditions  of  each 
subject. 

37 


38     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

The  instructor  may  not  wait  until  she  is  assured  that 
the  students  are  fairly  prepared  in  subject  matter,  but 
must  carry  on  simultaneously  a  course  in  observation  and 
practice  teaching. 

The  first  two  weeks  are  given  to  observation  without 
practice,  but  after  that  the  student  must  soon  begin  her 
practice  teaching,  for  before  the  end  of  the  year  she  must 
actually  have  taught  "from  120  to  180  clock  hours," 
which  means  that  a  minimum  requirement  of  time  for  a 
36- week  year  would  be  about  one-eighth  of  the  total 
school  hours.  When  one  considers  the  time  of  both  stu- 
dent and  teacher  which  must  be  spent  upon  preparation 
and  criticism  of  practice  lessons,  it  appears  that  the  re- 
quirement of  "from  120  to  180  clock  hours"  entails  an 
amount  of  work  which,  added  to  the  subject  matter 
courses,  is  bound  to  keep  any  instructor  amply  employed 
night  and  day  through  a  school  year. 

But  the  tale  is  not  yet  told.  Besides  the  content  and 
method  study  of  the  common  branches,  professional  stud- 
ies also  are  required.  These  consist  of  class  technique, 
child  study,  laws  and  principles  of  teaching,  and  class 
management  and  discipline.  In  these  professional  stud- 
ies, strong  emphasis  is  laid  upon  rural  specialization, 
which  means  a  far  higher  standard  of  preparation  for  the 
students  than  obtains  in  states  requiring  little  or  no  effort 
for  teachers  and  students,  since  the  study  of  rural 
school  problems,  if  effective,  must  be  based  on  a  mastery 
of  general  teaching  principles. 

THE    STUDENTS 

The  girls  who  compose  the  main  body  of  students  in 
the  schools  are  high  school  seniors,  girls  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen years  old.  Data  furnished  by  city  superintendents 
who  have  had  opportunity  to  see  and  study  these  depart- 


INSTRUCTION  39 

ments  show  that  they  are  "very  immature"  in  most  cases, 
and  sometimes  inferior  in  ability.  Many  of  them  in  the 
past  have  been  manifestly  unable  to  complete  the  regu- 
lar high  school  courses,  and  were  allowed  to  enter  and 
graduate  from  the  training  departments  because  of  the 
necessity  of  making  up  the  legal  minimum  in  attendance 
therein.  This  condition  now  holds  less  than  formerly,  but 
even  now  the  overcrowded  curriculum  must  be  taught  to 
very  immature  and  sometimes  inferior  students,  thus 
complicating  the  work  of  the  instructor. 

II.     Nature  of  the  Instruction 

AN    INEVITABLE    WEAKNESS 

Confronted  by  a  situation  so  manifestly  a  challenge  to 
her  ability,  the  training  teacher  organizes  her  time  and 
efforts  in  such  a  way  as  to  meet  the  most  fundamental  and 
indispensable  requirements  (especially  those  enumerated 
in  the  High  School  Board  rules)  and  then  divides  the 
little  time  that  remains  as  the  special  needs  of  her  group 
may  dictate.  Considering  the  great  difficulties  to  be  met, 
the  quality  of  work  done  in  the  high  school  training  de- 
partments is  admirably  high  in  most  cases,  and  the  ground 
covered  remarkable.  Necessarily,  however,  the  work  is 
hurried  and  formal.  The  special  observation  survey  con- 
ducted by  representatives  of  the  College  of  Education  of 
the  University  of  Minnesota  indicates  a  deplorable  de- 
pendence on  texts  and  a  sad  absence  of  spontaneity, 
special  adaptation,  and  thoroughness  in  the  subject  matter 
courses.  Often  the  specialization  of  content  with  a  view 
to  rural  conditions  is  almost  entirely  neglected ;  while 
there  is  little  evidence  of  a  searching  test  for  a  real  un- 
derstanding of  the  terms  and  symbols  used.  When  one 
considers  the  personnel  of  the  teaching  force,  these  short- 


4o      TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

comings  can  not  be  attributed  to  a  want  of  ability  on  the 
part  of  teachers ;  they  clearly  are  to  be  blamed  upon  the 
unconscionably  hurried  and  crowded  program. 

Formal  text  lessons  barely  approximating  the  content 
of  the  rural  school  curriculum  in  the  common  branches, 
then,  form  the  basis  of  the  year's  work.  It  is  necessary 
also  to  study  the  professional  subjects  largely  by  the  text 
method,  not  only  because  the  lack  of  time  makes  lecture, 
problem  and  experiment  methods  impracticable,  but  also 
because  of  the  extreme  youth  and  limited  ability  of  the 
students.  There  is  a  notable  sameness  in  the  comments 
of  a  visitor  passing  from  one  to  another  of  the  training 
departments  and  observing  recitations  in  each.  Almost 
invariably  the  attention  was  constant  and  conscientious, 
but  without  marked  enthusiasm  and  responsiveness. 
Personal  initiative  is  not  developed  as  it  would  be  were 
adequate  time  available,  or  if  problems  rather  than  book 
tasks  were  assigned  to  the  students.  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
certain  department  teachers  who  do  have  vision  and  who 
do  develop  the  personal  initiative  of  their  students. 

Observation 

The  first  observation  work  must  be  of  an  extremely 
simple  type,  since  it  takes  place  before  the  students  have 
mastered  any  part  of  the  theory  of  education  or  have 
gained  an  intelligently  critical  attitude  toward  teaching. 
The  observation  work  of  the  latter  part  of  the  year  is, 
of  course,  of  far  greater  value,  but  at  that  time  the  pres- 
sure of  other  subjects  makes  the  proper  correction  of 
notebooks  and  the  full  discussion  of  visits  very  difficult. 
The  observation  lessons  take  place  in  four  types  of 
schoolrooms — the  grade  rooms  of  the  town  system,  the 
ungraded  room  of  a  town  system,  ordinarily  neighboring 
rural  schools,  and  the  demonstration  rural  school,  largely 


INSTRUCTION  41 

managed,  or  at  least  much  influenced,  by  the  training 
teacher.  Observation  work  in  the  ordinary  rural  school 
may  be  of  much,  little,  or  negative  value,  according  to  the 
skill  of  the  teacher  in  charge.  That  in  the  town  school 
grades  is  often  of  great  value,  although  often  impractica- 
ble for  country  school  imitation,  especially  in  primary 
grades.  The  attached  and  controlled  demonstration 
school  offers  the  only  really  satisfactory  field  for  good 
observation  work,  as  it  does  also  for  practice  work. 
Much  effort  is  now  being  made  to  secure  such  schools, 
since  only  in  them  can  the  training  teacher  steer  clear  be- 
tween the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  of  demonstration  and 
practice  work — inapplicable  town  methods  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  imitation  of  the  teachers  whom  the  stu- 
dents are  being  trained  to  succeed,  on  the  other. 

III.     Means  of  Judging  Instruction 

A    DIRECT   TEST   ELIMINATED 

There  are  several  ways  in  which  the  quality  of  the  in- 
struction in  the  departments  may  be  judged.  Unfortu- 
nately for  the  purposes  of  this  study  the  giaduates  do  not 
take  the  regular  teachers'  examinations ;  they  were  ex- 
cused from  these  some  years  ago  as  a  means  of  inducing 
prospective  students  to  enter  these  departments.  If  this 
consideration  were  removed  the  number  of  students 
might  quickly  dwindle  to  a  point  below  the  legal  mini- 
mum, but  it  would  also  afford  an  opportunity,  to  com- 
pare the  teachers  thus  prepared  with  those  coming  from 
other  schools  and  those  without  normal  training. 

OTHER  TESTS   THAT  ARE  AVAILABLE 

The  evidence  of  county  superintendents  points  over- 
whelmingly to  the  conclusion  that  the  training  given  pro- 


42     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

duces  teachers  far  better  than  those  without  training; 
there  is  little  or  no  comparison  with  normal  school  gradu- 
ates, as  so  few  of  the  latter  teach  in  the  country.  Four 
means  of  judging  the  instruction  have  been  found  espe- 
cially valuable :  the  lesson  plans  of  the  students,  which 
show  pretty  clearly  the  content  of  the  practice  lessons 
and  the  methods  which  are  evidently  approved ;  three  spe- 
cific tests  in  arithmetic,  grammar  and  composition  re- 
spectively, which  show  fairly  the  degree  of  power  gained 
in  those  subjects;  personal  inspection,  as  already  noted; 
and  the  evidence  of  city  and  county  superintendents,  who 
were  interrogated  on  this  as  on  other  points  through  a 
fairly  searching  questionnaire. 

IV.     Quality  of  Instruction 

merits 

A  careful  study  shows  that  the  departments  are  strong 
in  a  number  of  respects.  Almost  without  exception,  the 
order  and  attention  of  the  students  are  good,  and  their 
attitude  is  one  of  earnest  and  sincere  effort.  The  work 
is  conducted  in  an  orderly  and  systematic  manner,  which 
cannot  fail  to  have  a  good  effect  on  the  future  work  of 
the  cadets.  Teacher  and  pupils  are  usually  business-like 
and  industrious,  although  in  a  few  cases  the  impression 
given  by  the  teacher  was  one  of  physical  strain  and  lassi- 
tude, probably  due  to  overwork  through  a  period  of  sev- 
eral years. 

A   SAD   LIMITATION 

The  wholesome  atmosphere  produced  by  the  good  at- 
titudes just  noted,  is  still  further  improved  as  a  rule  by 
an  earnest  and  sincere  attempt  by  both  teacher  and  pupils 
to    master   the   subject   matter.     The   instruction    goes 


INSTRUCTION  43 

usually  as  far  as  the  text  used,  but  little  farther.  That  is 
to  say,  the  subject  is  organized  about  as  it  is  in  the  text, 
the  content  of  the  text  is  fairly  mastered  and  the  at- 
titude of  the  text  becomes  unconsciously  that  of  the 
teacher  and  her  pupils.  As  the  attitude  of  most  texts  is 
strictly  informational,  so  the  apparent  goal  of  most  of 
the  teachers  seems  to  be  to  insure  a  working  minimum 
of  subject  mastery  in  their  pupils,  and  the  tests  show 
that  they  are  fortunate  if  they  reach  this  goal.  As  has 
been  said  before,  this  is  certainly  not  as  a  rule  because 
the  instructors  are  incompetent  to  generalize,  motivate, 
and  inspire ;  it  is  because  they  must  first  build  a  founda- 
tion for  this  deeper  and  broader  training,  which  as  a  rule 
they  never  reach.  So  they  do  what  they  can,  which  is 
to  teach  their  demonstration  lessons  with  enthusiasm  and 
skill,  organize  and  teach  their  own  group  as  well  as  may 
be,  and  hope  for  the  best.  In  the  detailed  technique  of 
presenting  demonstration  lessons,  the  department  teach- 
ers are  usually  good;  they  have  been  chosen  for  these 
positions  because  they  are  capable,  experienced,  and 
skillful  classroom  teachers. 

THE    TEACHERS 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  department  teachers  is  a  notable 
feature  of  the  instruction.  They  are  sometimes  effective 
community  leaders  as  well  as  good  teachers,  and  their 
socialized  attitude  is  inevitably  reflected  more  or  less,  ac- 
cording to  the  impressionability  and  responsiveness  of 
their  students.  In  the  cases  in  which  the  teachers  do 
possess  a  vision  of  the  needs  of  the  field  and  of  the 
means  of  meeting  those  demands,  good  motivation  and 
a  sense  of  relative  values  are  apparent  in  the  work  of  the 
departments.  Even  when  these  cannot  be  applied  in  de- 
tail to  method  during  the  year,  the  students  gain  a  gen- 


44     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

eral  insight  and  outlook  which  enables  them  later  to  teach 
every  subject  in  the  curriculum  better  than  they  other- 
wise would. 

THE    COUNTY    SUPERINTENDENT 

One  of  the  commendable  features  of  the  work  in  most 
departments  is  their  thorough  cooperation  with  the  coun- 
ty superintendents.  When  county  superintendents  are 
of  the  cooperating  type,  they  are  also  usually  well  in- 
formed as  to  the  needs  of  the  rural  schools  under  their 
care  and  can  direct  the  allotment  of  emphasis  so  as  defi- 
nitely to  improve  country  school  work.  For  obvious 
reasons  they  are  usually  better  able  to  do  this  than  are 
the  city  superintendents.  In  addition  to  other  duties,  the 
department  teachers  conduct  extension  activities  in  great 
variety.  This  has  been  done  from  the  first  by  some  teach- 
ers, but  not  until  191 5  was  the  matter  put  upon  a  sys- 
tematic and  official  basis.  In  that  summer  a  committee 
at  the  University  Farm  School  made  a  report  which  laid 
the  foundation  for  regular  extension  work  and  during 
the  following  school  year  the  teachers  throughout  the 
state  experimented  with  the  various  recommendations 
made.  In  1916-17  the  rules  of  the  State  High  School 
Board  set  aside  one  day  in  each  month  for  the  visiting  of 
former  training  school  graduates  then  in  active  service. 
From  that  time  the  extension  work  has  been  an  important 
part  of  each  director's  duties. 

This  extension  work  may  best  be  considered  under 
three  heads — the  advisory  office  work  on  Saturdays,  the 
visiting  and  supervision  of  rural  teachers  (especially  the 
alumnae  of  the  training  departments)  and  the  many  social 
activities  by  which  it  is  hoped  to  build  up  community 
consciousness  and  social  responsibility.     It  will  be  seen 


INSTRUCTION  45 

that  each  bears  strongly  upon  the  immediate  problems  of 
the  country  school. 

OTHER   GOOD  POINTS 

Naturally  the  type  and  value  of  the  instruction  given 
vary  greatly  with  the  personality  and  preparation  of  the 
teacher  or  teachers  in  charge.  In  a  few  schools  the  les- 
son plans  studied  were  excellent,  showing  insight  into  the 
teaching  problem  and  a  knowledge  of  teaching  tech- 
nique. They  were  long  enough  to  include  every  essential 
point  that  need  be  planned  anew  for  each  lesson  taught; 
they  were  not  weighted  and  padded  with  foolish  and 
unnecessary  details.  Some  teachers  are  especially  good 
in  their  criticism  of  practice  teaching,  pointing  out  strong 
and  weak  points  with  acumen,  and  offering  constructive 
suggestions  for  improvement.  Many  understand  rural 
conditions  so  thoroughly  that  they  can  give  valuable  ad- 
vice to  the  town  girls  so  soon  to  try  themselves  in  those 
new  situations.  Others  are  an  inspiration  to  their  stu- 
dents because  of  their  accomplishments  or  their  general 
culture. 

Defects 

unscientific  teaching 

The  most  serious  shortcomings  in  instruction  may  be 
considered  under  the  heads  of  Content,  Method,  and 
Supervision,  according  to  the  phase  of  the  training  teach- 
er's activity  which  they  seem  most  to  affect.  Faulty 
scholarship  and  inaccurate  terminology  too  often  char- 
acterize the  teaching  of  the  common  branches ;  for  in- 
stance, in  one  school  the  statement  that  during  the  Revo- 
lution the  colonies  were  held  together  by  the  Articles  of 
Confederation  and  the  attributing  of  the  expression,  "We 


46     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

have  met  the  enemy,  and  they  are  ours,"  to  several  men 
in  several  different  wars,  was  allowed  to  pass  unchal- 
lenged. In  another  school  some  pupils  habitually  wrote 
"x  feet  times  y  feet  equals  z  feet"  and  similar  expressions. 
It  is  a  physical  impossibility  for  any  one  human  being  to 
become  an  expert  in  the  technique  of  fourteen  courses ; 
inevitably  the  result  of  assigning  to  one  woman  the  spe- 
cial method  of  all  the  common  branches  is  that  some  of 
them  will  be  formally  and  inadequately,  if  not  badly, 
taught.  Special  method  experts  in  normal  schools  and 
college  departments  of  education  spend  their  lives  in  mas- 
tering and  teaching  their  own  special  subjects,  and  find 
themselves  hard  pushed  for  time. 

The  formal  and  text-bound  nature  of  the  instruction 
in  the  common  branches  has  been  noted.  As  a  conse- 
quence, the  lessons  are  often  lacking  in  interest  and  low 
in  motivation  and  have  little  or  no  connection  with  actual 
rural  conditions.  The  latter  complaint  is  found  repeat- 
edly in  the  reports  of  both  county  and  city  superintend- 
ents, although  adaptation  to  the  rural  situation  is  obvious- 
ly the  chief  reason-for-being  of  the  departments.  What 
time  for  local  adaptation  can  a  teacher  of  fourteen 
courses  be  supposed  to  have? 

A    MATTER    OF   ENTRANCE   REQUIREMENTS 

The  weakness  in  mastery  of  subject  matter,  a  frequent 
cause  of  complaint  in  the  graduates,  should  most  cer- 
tainly not  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  rural  training  depart- 
ments. The  students  often  come  to  the  departments 
without  the  fundamentals  of  the  common  branches,  and 
in  the  limited  time  available,  it  is  impossible  thoroughly 
to  counteract  the  effects  of  superficiality  and  low  stand- 
ards in  the  grade  work  of  the  cadets.  The  blame  here 
rests  clearly  upon  the  elementary  schools,  and  the  remedy 


INSTRUCTION  47 

must  be  found  in  enforcing  higher  standards  there.  Ef- 
forts are  being  made  to  make  the  entrance  requirements 
more  strict,  thus  eliminating  many  who  are  unable  to 
master  the  elementary  subjects. 

CHIEF    NEEDS 

The  need  of  a  thorough  understanding  of  terms  is  espe- 
cially apparent  in  grammar  and  arithmetic,  and  the  need 
of  habit-forming  and  habit-breaking  technique,  in  Eng- 
lish composition.  In  an  arithmetic  test  given  in  1916  to 
practically  all  training  department  students  the  problems 
involving  fundamental  operations,  decimals,  etc.,  were 
solved  correctly;  but  only  61%  of  the  solutions  of  a 
problem,  involving  real  but  not  involved  thinking,  were 
correct.  Such  a  result  would  be  found  probably  in  any 
state,  and  in  any  group  of  students ;  nevertheless,  taken 
in  connection  with  the  criticisms  of  superintendents  and 
inspectors,  it  indicates  a  very  real  need  in  the  training 
school  work.  In  an  English  composition  test  the  very 
interesting  results  show  clearly  the  strong  and  weak 
points  in  the  instruction  in  that  subject.  The  highest 
scores  were  made  in  the  test  of  knowledge  of  subject 
matter  for  rural  school  courses  and  especially  in  mastery 
of  drill  technique  for  fundamentals  of  structure.  There 
was  far  less  evidence  of  thorough  work  on  oral  compo- 
sition. Over  55%  of  the  papers  showed  no  conscious- 
ness of  the  existence  of  any  technique  of  habit  forming 
or  habit  breaking  in  composition,  and  only  11.5%  gave 
any  definite  suggestion  as  to  method.  The  distribution 
of  subjects  in  the  various  grades  had  been  more  empha- 
sized than  methods  and  devices  for  teaching,  which  47% 
of  the  papers  ignored  completely,  while  only  a  little  over 
18%  gave  anything  definite  upon  that  subject.  The  per- 
centage of  consciousness  of  the  need  of  motivation  and 


48     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

of  free  expression  was  very  fair,  but  few  gave  evidence 
of  any  definite  idea  how  to  attain  them.  The  whole  test 
indicated  that  training-department  students  will  adapt 
their  subject  matter  in  composition  to  rural  conditions 
very  well ;  that  they  will  make  some  attempt  to  motivate 
the  work,  and  that  they  will  drill  thoroughly  on  the  struc- 
tural fundamentals,  one  of  the  first  and  most  important 
phases  of  the  work.  They  will  begin  the  work  early  in 
the  grades — usually  in  the  third  grade — and  differentiate 
with  good  judgment  for  the  several  grades.  But  they 
have  almost  no  idea  of  correlation  with  other  subjects; 
they  are  weak  in  methods;  and,  most  serious  of  all,  they 
lack  the  knowledge  of  psychological  principles  that  will 
enable  them  to  guide  the  habit- forming  and  habit-break- 
ing processes  of  their  pupils. 

POOR   SPECIAL   TEACHERS 

Bad  examples  of  teaching  are  often  found  in  the  teach- 
ing of  the  vocational  subjects,  especially  agriculture  and 
manual  training  by  the  departmental  instructors  in  those 
subjects.  These  men,  even  when  thoroughly  informed 
in  the  content  of  their  subjects,  are  frequently  very  poor 
teachers,  working  without  discoverable  organization  and 
breaking  innocently  the  most  sacred  rules  of  the  teaching 
craft. 

RURAL   ADAPTATION 

Perhaps  the  most  frequent  criticism  of  superintendents 
is  that  the  training  teachers  use  and  transmit  methods 
adapted  to  town  rather  than  to  rural  school  use.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  this  criticism  may  be  discounted  as  the 
result  of  a  deeply  grounded  superstition  that  country 
schools  do  not  need  improved  methods.  Some  superin- 
tendents cannot  be  persuaded  that  rural  school  boys  and 


INSTRUCTION  49 

girls  deserve  as  good  teaching  as  do  those  of  the  city,  or 
that  it  is  practicable  to  give  it  to  them.  Against  this 
stultifying  idea  the  training  teachers  are  working  bravely, 
and  doubtless  as  the  years  pass  the  criticism  will  be 
heard  less  and  less.  Another  factor  in  its  elimination  is 
the  introduction  of  more  demonstration  schools  of  a  typ- 
ical rural  character,  in  which  rural  methods  may  be 
shown.  When  observation  and  practice  work  had  to  be 
done  for  the  most  part  in  the  town  system,  naturally  the 
students  imitated  town  school  methods. 

LACK    OF    INITIATIVE 

The  widespread  neglect  of  the  study  of  relative  values 
leads  to  a  more  serious  weakness  in  the  students.  Be- 
cause they  have  not  learned  to  differentiate  between  im- 
portant and  non-essential  elements  they  are  all  at  sea 
if  circumstances  compel  them  to  omit  something  from  the 
prescribed  courses.  As  the  usual  solution,  they  go  as 
far  as  time  allows,  taking  everything  in  the  course  as  it 
comes  rather  than  spend  the  time  on  the  most  essential 
elements. 

THEORY   AND   PRACTICE 

A  very  serious  defect  in  the  instruction,  which  appears 
in  many  different  forms  and  instances,  is  the  lack  of  cor- 
relation between  the  theory  in  the  more  purely  profes- 
sional courses  and  the  actual  schoolroom  practice  in  the 
department.  An  inspector  happened  to  arrive  in  time 
to  hear  a  very  well-prepared  recitation  on  elements  of 
distraction  during  the  recitation  (using  Betts'  "The  Reci- 
tation" as  a  text).  The  recitation  was  begun  promptly 
at  the  beginning  of  the  hour,  although  some  members  of 
the  class  had  but  just  arrived  from  chorus  practice  and 
were  still  settling  into  their  seats  and  arranging  material 


50      TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

on  their  tables  while  the  statements  in  the  text  were  being 
glibly  recited  by  others.  "A  number  of  causes  were 
suggested,  among  them,  the  lighting  of  the  room.  The 
teacher  talked  long  on  the  evils  of  front  light,  display- 
ing their  handiwork  in  that  she  had  covered  a  front 
window  at  the  extreme  left  of  the  room  with  burlap. 
Now  all  light  came  from  the  left  side.  But  at  least  half 
of  the  class  faced  a  glaring  light  during  the  entire  period. 
The  teacher  had  moved  her  desk  to  the  corner  next  the 
windows,  and  stood  near  it  throughout  the  period.  The 
light  was  painful  to  me,  and  I  was  no  worse  off  than  half 
the  class."    This  may  not  be  a  typical  case. 

The  converse  of  the  fault  just  noted — the  discussion  of 
practical  problems  in  management  with  no  reference  to 
the  principles  involved — is  also  noted  as  a  frequent  weak- 
ness. One  teacher  had  put  on  the  board  a  list  of  eight- 
een typical,  common,  concrete  rural  school  problems  in 
discipline  and  management  which  she  talked  over  freely 
with  the  class.  In  an  extended  discussion,  neither  teacher 
nor  students  cited  a  single  principle.  In  the  end,  the  con- 
clusion was  simply  the  teacher's  opinion,  unsupported  by 
the  slightest  reference  to  psychology  or  the  principles  of 
government. 

PROBLEM    METHOD 

Although  the  problem  and  project  methods  have  re- 
cently received  much  attention  from  educators,  one  finds 
very  little  evidence  of  their  introduction  in  the  training 
schools.  Any  attention  to  motivation  is  bound  to  bring 
in  its  train  some  practice  of  this  method,  whether  recog- 
nized and  named  or  not ;  but  there  is  so  much  oppor- 
tunity and  so  much  need  of  its  extensive  use  in  rural 
schools  that  it  should  receive  more  emphasis,  and  more 
explicit  explanation  and  illustration. 


INSTRUCTION  51 

SUPERVISION 

The  successful  supervision  of  practice  teaching  re- 
quires a  wide  and  thorough  working  knowledge  of  edu- 
cational theory  and  educational  skill.  Some  of  the  de- 
partment teachers,  especially  those  who  have  made  a 
real  study  of  supervision,  do  excellent  work  in  evalua- 
tion and  constructive  criticism.  On  the  other  hand,  some 
seem  unable  to  indicate  points  of  weakness,  to  suggest 
improved  methods,  and  to  guide  the  student  in  curing 
herself  of  faults  and  in  building  up  good  teaching  habits. 

LESSON    PLANS 

The  students  in  the  departments  were  asked  to  hand 
in  sample  lesson  plans,  to  be  chosen  from  among  their 
best.  These  plans  show  little  uniformity  and  many 
shortcomings.  Some  are  so  incomplete  as  to  indicate 
that  the  writer  had  no  conception  of  real  lesson-planning. 
Of  208  plans  for  primary  reading  lessons,  104  make  no 
mention  of  the  children's  aims,  and  of  the  50%  which 
did  write  down  the  words,  few  showed  "any  true  under- 
standing of  pupils'  purposes,  or  of  child  nature."  Most 
of  them  are  merely  restatements  of  the  teacher's  aim. 
Under  the  heading  "procedure"  all  sorts  of  things  are  in- 
cluded— subject  matter,  method,  special  devices,  aims, 
occasionally  outcomes ;  but  an  aim  often  appears  without 
any  provision  for  its  realization,  or  a  point  in  the  record 
of  procedure  for  which  no  provision  has  been  made  in 
the  assignment.  An  extreme  example  of  these  incom- 
plete plans  is  one  for  a  2B  reading  lesson ;  it  gives,  after 
the  date  and  the  time  of  recitation,  about  six  lines  on 
lesson  procedure,  in  which  the  only  statement  of  aim  is 
that  the  pupils  are  to  "read  with  expression,  so  that  I 


52     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

will  know  what  they  are  reading  about  without  looking 
at  the  book." 

HAZINESS  AS  TO  TERMS 

In  some  plans  in  which  most  or  all  of  the  necessary 
factors  are  shown,  there  is  a  striking  lack  of  proper  order 
and  organization  of  elements.  A  second  grade  arithmetic 
plan,  submitted  for  a  drill  lesson,  gave  under  "Topic" 
two  distinct  types  of  work;  filled  out  the  page  with  a 
long  list  of  general  and  not  especially  relevant  "aims," 
stated  under  "Procedure"  that  the  lesson  was  to  consist 
of  drill  on  the  two  subjects,  with  a  note  on  the  ma- 
terials to  be  used — a  bean  bag,  number  perception  cards 
and  the  blackboard;  and  closed  with  this  sweeping  in- 
clusive "assignment" : 

A.  Keep  on  with  addition,  subtraction,  and  multiplica- 
tion of  numbers. 

Another  plan  for  second  grade  reading  included  "The 
Rational  Method"  under  "Topic,"  the  words  for  the  word 
drill  and  the  lesson  story  under  "Procedure,"  and  under 
"Assignment"  noted  with  insouciance  that  another 
teacher  assumes  this  responsibility. 

This  confusion  of  terminology  appears  repeatedly,  and 
must  spring,  aside  from  the  inability  of  many  young  girls 
to  understand  and  use  abstract  terms,  from  the  omission 
of  clear  explanation  on  the  part  of  the  teacher.  One 
paper  gives  directions  for  lesson  preparation  under 
"Presentation,"  and  plans  for  the  recitation  procedure 
under  "Application."  Preparation  and  Assignment  are 
often  confused,  as  are  Assignment  and  Procedure. 

The  English  in  the  plans  is  faulty,  but  no  more  so 
than  is  usual  in  those  of  normal  school  or  even  univer- 
sity students.  Few  of  the  plans  had  any  mark  of  cor- 
rection on   them.     One,   on  which   some  comment   had 


INSTRUCTION  53 

been  made,  had  one  of  five  mistakes  in  English  marked. 
Most  of  the  plans  follow  the  McMurry  scheme  more 
or  less  closely.  Of  1027  plans,  gathered  from  104 
schools,  16%  showed  some  idea  of  a  problem  method, 
14%  were  for  drill  lessons,  and  45%  detailed  tasks, 
"largely  mere  drudgery,"  with  no  indication  of  motives. 
Five  per  cent  of  them  were  listed  by  the  examiner  as 
excellent  plans,  34%  as  satisfactory,  and  61%  as  poor. 

FIRST-CLASS  WORK  IMPOSSIBLE 

The  development  of  student  initiative  is  one  of  the  re- 
sults of  good  supervision.  Such  suggestions  as  might  be 
made  for  the  improvement  of  instruction  in  the  depart- 
ments have  been  implied  in  the  foregoing  criticism.  Prog- 
ress toward  any  marked  improvement  seems  always  to 
meet  the  impasse  of  the  impossible  proposition  upon 
which  the  department  work  is  based — that  one  or  two 
women,  in  one  year's  time,  can  teach  fourteen  content- ful 
courses  to  a  class  of  immature  and  often  ill-prepared 
girls.  The  one  or  two  women  are  attempting  to  do  what 
is  done  by  a  corps  of  specialists  in  the  normal  schools  and 
college  training  departments.  They  are  usually  adept  at 
several  branches,  but  can  hardly  be  imagined  to  be  adept 
in  all. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  instruction,  the  large  nor- 
mal school,  state-supported,  seems  to  be  the  only  institu- 
tion which  can  adequately  meet  the  need  for  trained  rural 
teachers.  To  support  a  corps  of  specialists  in  a  town, 
or  even  in  a  county,  is  impossible ;  therefore  any  attempt 
to  substitute  the  county  training  school  for  the  present 
system  would  be  an  inadequate  and  impracticable  solu- 
tion. 


VI.     ADMINISTRATION 

Certain  features  of  the  administration  of  the  depart- 
ments are  provided  for  by  law  or  by  regulation  by  the 
State  Department  of  Education,  but  within  these  general 
restrictions  there  exist  many  differences,  due  partly  to 
the  freedom  of  development  at  first  accorded  to  the  de- 
partments, and  partly  to  the  very  different  conceptions  of 
their  nature  and  function  in  the  minds  of  the  city  and 
county  superintendents  concerned  with  them.  Miss  Car- 
ney, finding  the  departments  too  widely  apart  in  many 
respects  for  the  most  effective  work,  did  much  to  stand- 
ardize practice  and  aims,  and  through  this  effort  the  de- 
partments were  brought  much  more  closely  under  state 
supervision  and  control  than  they  had  been  previous  to 
1914. 

VARIETY  OF  OPINION 

The  attitudes  of  superintendents  vary  widely.  A  cer- 
tain city  superintendent,  in  a  paper  read  at  the  191 5 
session  of  the  Minnesota  Education  Association,  denied 
emphatically  that  the  state  has  any  right  to  control  the 
training  departments,  and  held  that  their  superintendence, 
management  and  methods  are  altogether  within  the  sphere 
of  duties  of  the  city  superintendents.  On  the  other  hand 
many  superintendents  think  that  the  departments  can 
be  more  expertly  supervised  by  the  state  department,  and 
they  are  glad  to  cooperate  with  such  supervision.  County 
superintendents,  who  must  deal  with  the  product  and 
know  best  the  needs  of  the  rural  schools,  sometimes  feel 

54 


ADMINISTRATION  55 

that  their  wishes  and  suggestions  receive  little  considera- 
tion from  the  city  superintendents,  who  are  in  more  im- 
mediate control.  Considering  the  number  of  factors 
which  under  the  present  plan  enter  into  the  control  of 
the  departments  it  is  surprising  that  there  is  as  hearty 
and  harmonious  cooperation  as  is  often  found,  between 
state  supervisor,  county  superintendent,  city  superinten- 
dent, and  training  teacher. 

PRESENT    PRACTICE 

The  administrative  scheme  at  present  is,  briefly,  this: 
The  state  makes  the  departments  possible  by  granting 
to  them  an  allowance  of  $1,200  or  more,  upon  their  ful- 
filling certain  requirements  which  are  fixed  entirely  by 
the  state.  The  inspector  of  the  departments  is  an  em- 
ployee of  the  state,  and  all  the  regulations  for  organiza- 
tion and  conduct  emanate  from  this  inspector  and  the 
high  school  board  under  and  with  which  he  works.  These 
regulations  are  now  pretty  thoroughly  formulated,  and 
well  enforced. 

The  state  inspector  (working  always  under  the  direction 
of  the  State  High  School  Board)  locates  the  departments, 
passes  upon  the  quarters  and  equipment,  makes  sugges- 
tions for  the  library,  and  has  the  final  voice  in  the  ad- 
mission of  students  to  the  departments.  He  makes  the 
rules  for  maximum  and  for  minimum  enrollment  (now 
fixed  at  8),  and  sets  the  standard  of  qualifications  for 
entrance,  both  as  to  age  and  as  to  subjects  prerequisite 
for  the  course.  He  also  sets  the  requirements  for  the 
certification  of  teachers,  and  establishes  minimum  sal- 
aries. In  the  details  of  organization  he  prescribes  cer- 
tain things,  including  the  requirements  for  one,  two  and 
three  teacher  departments,  both  as  to  equipment  and  as 
to  conduct.     He  plans  the  course  of  study   (the  forth- 


56     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

coming  one  being  compiled  jointly  by  Miss  Carney  and 
Mr.  Flynn),  and  formulates  the  program.  This  last 
function  involves  the  allotment  of  relative  time  to  the 
various  subjects,  and  a  designation  of  time  requirements 
as  to  practice  in  rural  schools,  rural  demonstration 
schools,  graded  and  ungraded  rooms  in  the  town  school, 
and  in  the  spring  primary  class.  He  also  fixes  the 
amount  of  transportation  aid  given  and  the  conditions  for 
granting  it.  He  supervises  the  extension  of  institute 
work  and  decides  the  time  to  be  given  to  it.  He  desig- 
nates the  number  of  high  school  credits  to  be  earned  in 
training  work,  cooperates  with  the  state  and  county  su- 
perintendents in  granting  teachers'  certificates,  and  con- 
fers with  the  normal  schools  in  the  fixing  of  normal 
school  credit  for  department  work. 

LOCAL    CONTROL 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  state  inspector,  with  authority 
from  the  State  High  School  Board,  is  the  final  court  in 
all  the  affairs  of  the  departments.  Nevertheless  much  of 
the  local  and  immediate  administration  falls  to  the  city 
superintendent  of  whose  system  they  form  an  intrinsic 
part.  To  him  belong  the  local  supervision,  and  the  set- 
tling of  countless  points  of  policy  or  discretion  that  arise 
in  everyday  practice.  It  is  he  who  makes  application  in 
the  first  place  for  a  department,  for  his  district  or  city. 
He  provides  the  quarters  and  equipment,  upon  which  the 
state  director  passes  before  they  may  be  used ;  cooperates 
with  the  training  teacher  in  selecting  the  library,  and  rec- 
ommends students  for  the  department.  With  the  require- 
ments of  the  state  department  in  mind,  it  is  his  duty  to 
find  a  teacher  for  the  department.  He  regulates  the  sal- 
aries of  the  rural  teachers  who  assist  in  the  work,  and 
often  exercises  certain  supervisory  functions  in  the  dem- 


ADMINISTRATION  57 

onstration  school,  which  may  be,  and  often  is  of  his  se- 
lection. He  must  necessarily  control  the  practice  teach- 
ing in  the  grades,  or  in  the  ungraded  room  of  the  town 
system ;  often  he  assigns  the  work,  or  passes  upon  that  of 
the  director.  If  the  department  teacher  wishes  to  visit 
other  departments,  or  attend  conferences,  she  goes  to 
him  for  authority  to  do  so.  He  certifies  to  the  earning 
of  credits  in  the  department,  and  recommends  the  re- 
newal of  teachers'  certificates.  In  a  word,  under  the 
rules  fixed  by  the  state  he  has  general  control  of  the 
local  situation.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the  cooperation 
between  city  superintendent  and  state  inspector  is  cordial 
and  thorough. 

THE    COUNTY    SUPERINTENDENT 

To  the  county  superintendent  fall  certain  definite  ad- 
ministrative functions,  and  many  indefinite  but  important 
advisory  duties.  He  approves  the  recommendations  of 
pupils  for  the  departments,  designates  the  rural  schools 
best  to  be  used  for  practice  work,  regulates  the  attend- 
ance of  teachers  at  institutes,  signs  the  applications  for 
teachers'  certificates  and  recommends  their  renewal.  But 
more  important  than  these  official  duties  is  his  cooper- 
ating supervision,  and  the  advice  he  gives  as  to  emphasis 
in  the  training  of  the  students  for  the  country  schools  in 
his  county.  His  helpfulness  in  supervising  the  actual 
practice  of  the  teachers  depends,  of  course,  upon  his 
knowledge  of  the  science  of  supervision  and  his  re- 
sourcefulness as  an  educator — often  limited  enough; 
and  even  when  he  is  well  able  to  perform  this  supervision 
in  an  effective  way,  it  is  clearly  impossible  to  visit  the 
teachers  frequently  enough  to  be  of  much  help. 

A  study  of  the  development  of  this  system  of  co- 
operative administration  shows  that  the  balance  of  au- 


58     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

thority  has  been  increasingly  thrown  upon  the  state  de- 
partment. This  is  a  result  of  the  present  tendency  in 
education,  manifest  in  Minnesota  as  elsewhere :  a  ten- 
dency to  increase  the  effectiveness  of  local  administra- 
tion through  the  supervision  of  such  experts  as  can  be 
secured  only  by  a  centralized  agency  of  adequate  re- 
sources. 

The  interchange  of  ideas  and  the  unity  of  purpose 
which  result  from  the  visits  of  the  state  director  tend 
immensely-  to  emphasize  the  professional  quality  of  the 
departments,  and  react  upon  the  rural  schools  in  such  a 
way  as  to  bring  them  nearer  to  standard  practice  than 
they  would  otherwise  be.  The  state  supervision  does 
much ;  more  of  the  expert  guidance  thus  furnished  would 
probably  bring  the  rural  schools  far  nearer  than  they  are 
now  to  what  it  is  hoped  they  may  become. 

In  addition  to  the  visits  of  the  state  director,  during 
recent  years  there  have  been  organized  courses  in  the 
summer  session  of  the  state  university  which  resulted  in 
increased  motivation  and  specialization  in  the  work. 
These  courses  included  not  only  a  basic  one  on  the  prob- 
lems of  training  departments  required  of  all  inexperi- 
enced training  teachers  before  endorsement,  but  also  one 
in  nature  study,  which  served  to  motivate  and  adapt  the 
science  teaching  to  rural  conditions  and  the  interests  of 
country  children ;  courses  in  rural  sociology  planned  to 
show  what  can  be  done  in  community  work ;  and  a  special 
course  for  teachers  of  rural  demonstration  schools. 

CONFERENCES 

Other  unifying  and  inspirational  agencies  are  the  an- 
nual conferences  for  training  teachers,  held  at  the  Uni- 
versity in  the  early  autumn,  and  the  Rural  Life  Con- 
ference held  during  the  summer  session.    The  plans  for 


ADMINISTRATION  59 

these  vary  from  year  to  year,  and  since  the  war  it  has 
been  necessary  to  curtail  and  change  and  in  some  cases 
to  omit  them  entirely. 

COOPERATION  WITH  OTHER  AGENCIES 

The  departments  have  cooperated  with  the  many  state 
agencies  for  war  work  and  thrift  propaganda.  An 
instance  of  this  is  the  children's  garden  club  work,  which 
was  organized  in  191 7  in  practically  all  of  the  cities  hav- 
ing training  departments,  with  summer  supervision  by 
department  students.  Red  Cross  sewing  and  war-time 
cookery  are  other  subjects  which  have  received  their 
quota  of  attention  through  the  special  agencies  having 
them  in  charge. 

PUBLICATION 

At  the  present  time  publications  by  the  departments 
are  out  of  the  question,  owing  to  war  conditions,  but  it 
is  hoped  that  if  the  system  is  continued  long  enough  to 
make  it  desirable,  bulletins  may  be  issued  showing  the  re- 
sults of  experiments  and  setting  forth  clearly  new  and 
improved  methods  of  work.  A  number  of  topics  for 
such  bulletins  were  suggested  several  years  ago,  on  sub- 
jects concerning  which  there  is  as  yet  no  helpful  litera- 
ture ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  with  the  return  of  nor- 
mal conditions  there  may  appear  in  printed  form  the 
conclusions  of  those  who  have  been  working  in  the  fields 
indicated. 


VII.     FINANCES 


THE    SHARED    EXPENSE 


The  teacher  training  departments  of  the  Minnesota 
high  schools  are  maintained  almost  exclusively  by  the 
state.  The  local  community  furnishes  suitable  quarters, 
desks,  if  they  are  used,  wall  black-boards,  heat  and  jani- 
tor service.  The  state  pays  the  salary  of  the  training 
teacher,  or  teachers  where  more  than  one  are  employed, 
paying  for  all  material  used — library-books,  teacher's 
desk,  and  for  tables  for  the  pupils  if  they  prefer  them 
to  the  regular  school-desk.  As  most  of  the  departments 
use  tables,  all  of  the  furniture  is  supplied  by  the  state. 

THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  EXTRAVAGANCE 

Formerly  the  only  check  that  the  state  had  on  the  ex- 
penditures of  these  departments  was  that  the  expense  for 
a  one-teacher  department  shall  not  exceed  $1200  per  year. 
In  most  cases,  however,  all  expenditures  were  made  by 
the  normal  training  teacher  with  the  city  superintendent's 
specific  consent  for  each  item.  This  was  a  fair  protec- 
tion against  waste,  but  there  were  cases,  as  the  following 
facts  will  show,  in  which  a  more  careful  accounting  was 
much  needed.  Until  recently  the  required  reports  in- 
cluded the  salary  of  teacher,  total  new  equipment,  and 
total  current  expenses  for  material.  In  1914-15  there 
was  sent  out  a  blank  requiring  detailed  information  as  to 
how  the  money  was  being  spent.    But  as  many  superin- 

60 


FINANCES  61 

tendents  were  displeased  that  such  a  report  should  be 
required,  the  state  department  requested  that  the  schools 
be  excused  from  sending  it  in.  At  present,  however 
(1918-19),  itemized  expense  accounts  conforming  to  cer- 
tain standards  for  expenditure  are  required. 

WHY  THE  TEACHERS  ARE  FAIRLY   WELL  PAID 

Most  schools  spend  the  entire  amount  of  state  aid, 
and  very  few  spend  more  than  that.  This  has  one  ad- 
vantage ;  a  fair  salary  is  paid  to  the  teacher,  since  that  is 
the  easiest  way  to  spend  the  money.  The  average  salary 
for  1914-15  was  $829;  for  1915-16,  $865;  for  1916-17, 
$908;  for  1917-18,  $926;  for  1918-19,  $1,005.  The  law 
provides  that  the  schools  can  secure  from  the  state  only 
the  actual  expense  of  maintaining  this  department — not 
to  exceed  the  amount  of  the  state  aid.  Questionable  ex- 
penses  often  creep  in — for  example   (1914-15  Report): 

NEW  USES  FOR  STATE  MONEY 

Library  table $30 .  00 

Electric  lights 1 7 .  60 

Writing  paper 15 .00  (8  students  enrolled) 

50  diplomas  for  Normal  Department     18.00  (15  students  enrolled) 

25  diplomas  for  Normal  Department     18.00  (12  students  enrolled) 

Magazines 15 .00  (13  students  enrolled) 

Slate  black  board 20 .  00 

Organizing  Rural  Teachers'  Associa- 
tion and  maintaining  the  same ...     27 .  50 

Freight  and  drayage 10.00 

Construction  material 56.00  (Many  spend  less  than 

$10) 

Salary  for  janitor 63 .  00  (9    enrolled    and    lest 

this  be  too  little  $10 
is  added  for  good 
measure) 

Board  for  rural  cadets 90 .  00 

Fuel 34 .  00 

Diplomas 23 .  75  (16  enrolled) 

Table 30 .  00 


62     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

School  periodicals $15.30 

Interest  and  discount 49-95 

Shelves 46 .  15 

Nature  study  chart 25 .  00 

Periodicals 14 .  56 

Library  cabinet 40 .  00 

Picture 10 .  00 

Diplomas  and  framing  picture 20 .  25 

Entertainment  teachers 10.00 

Picnic  Normal  Cadets 7 .  50 

Kitchen  tables 20 .  43 

Construction  material 94-17 

Electric  lights 12 .  50 

Construction  material 81 .47 

10  Industrial  Teachers  desks 115.00 

2  tables  @  $20 40 .  00 

Normal  conference 10 .  00 

Number  of  items  listed  above  not  allowed  by   State 

Supervisor 18 

Number  of  schools  listing  items  not  allowed 18 

Number  of  items  reduced  (partially  paid  by  State) ....  4 

Amount  (total)  listed  not  paid  by  State $47 1 .98 

Total  amount  of  questionable  items  listed  above $1,080. 13 


COMPARATIVE  EXPENSE  OF  STUDENTS  IN  TRAINING  DEPART- 
MENTS AND  NORMAL  SCHOOLS 

During  the  year  191 7-18  these  departments  cost  the 
state  $132,441,  an  average  of  $1204.  This  is  a  cost  of 
$118  per  certified  pupil,  of  $110  per  enrolled  pupil.  If  to 
this  could  be  added  the  over-head  expenses  that  are  borne 
by  the  local  community  it  would  increase  this  amount  to 
something  over  $125  for  each  pupil.  The  cost  per  pupil  in 
the  five  state  normal  schools  for  1915-1916  according  to 
figures  furnished  by  Assistant  State  Superintendent  G. 
M.  Cesander  was  as  follows: 

"The  enrollment  in  the  five  normal  schools  last  year 
was  as  follows : 

Fall  term 2,230 

Winter  term 2,231 

Spring  term 2,206 

Total 6,667 


FINANCES  63 

The  average  for  the  three  terms  is  2,222.  The  total 
expenditure  was  $385,542,  and  the  average  cost  per  pupil 
would  be  $173.50. 

But  the  above  makes  no  allowance  for  the  cost  of  the 
summer  school,  which  is  included  in  the  total  expense. 
Judging  from  the  report  of  191 5- 16,  the  last  published, 
the  summer  school  enrollment  is  about  the  same  as  that 
for  any  one  term,  and  continues  for  half  as  long.  This 
would  mean  adding  %  to  the  average  yearly  enrollment, 
or  371.  This  would  give  a  total  of  2,593  as  tne  average 
yearly  enrollment.  The  cost  per  pupil  on  this  basis  would 
be  $148.68. 

The  following  table  gives  the  cost  per  student  for 
each  school  in  191 5- 16,  the  last  year  for  which  specific 
facts  are  published: 

Cost  per 
State  Normal  School  Student 

Winona $212 .  54 

Mankato 191 .  87 

Moorhead 155-30 

Duluth 171. 09 

St.  Cloud 140 .  04 

Average 1 74 . 1 7 

Teacher  Training  H.  S.  average 125 .  00 

It  will  be  noted  that  it  costs  about  $50  more  per  year 
to  train  a  teacher  in  a  state  normal  than  in  a  local  de- 
partment ;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there  is  also  a 
great  difference  in  the  kind  and  amount  of  training  so 
given,  as  is  pointed  out  in  the  chapter  on  Instruction. 

The  present  cost  per  pupil  in  the  Minnesota  high 
schools  cannot  be  ascertained,  as  the  State  Department 
has  no  record  of  separate  expense  items  for  grade  and 
high  school  pupils,  neither  do  they  publish  any  statement 
of  local  taxes.     But  judging  from  the  cost  in   nearby 


64     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

states  it  would  be  somewhere  between  $40  and  $48.     In 
Minnesota  the  cost  is  probably  nearer  the  latter  figure. 

Total  Expenditures  of  the  Departments. 

1917-18. 

Salaries $108,424 

Library  and  equipment 14,176 

Transportation 4.055 

Demonstration  schools 3,206 

Total  for  all $129,861 


VIII.   WHAT  MINNESOTA  SUPERINTENDENTS 
THINK  OF  THE  TRAINING  DEPARTMENTS 

The  men  who  see  most  of  the  product  of  the  training 
departments  are  the  county  superintendents,  while  the 
city  superintendents  have  the  best  opportunity  for  con- 
stant observation  of  their  daily  routine.  Therefore  in 
forming  a  critical  judgment  of  the  departments,  the  opin- 
ions of  both  county  and  city  superintendents  were  asked. 

SOURCE  OF  INFORMATION 

The  questionnaires  used  in  this  inquiry  were  so  worded 
as  to  encourage  a  free  expression  of  opinion,  and  such 
suggestions  as  might  occur  to  the  writers.  County  super- 
intendents were  asked  specifically  to  indicate  points  of 
weakness  and  strength,  to  suggest  needed  changes,  and  to 
appraise  the  training  given ;  while  city  superintendents 
were  asked  in  addition  to  give  details  of  the  administra- 
tion, to  compare  the  efficiency  of  instruction  in  elemen- 
tary branches  and  in  professional  studies.  The  answers 
showed  conscientious  care  in  the  filling  out  of  the  papers, 
and  a  sincere  wish  to  help  toward  a  true  understanding 
of  the  situation. 

POINTS  OF  WEAKNESS 

According  to  the  replies,  a  chief  weakness  is  that  stu- 
dents admitted  are  too  immature  to  profit  by  the  profes- 
sional training  offered.  Even  when  they  are  sixteen  or 
more  upon  entering,  they  are  so  poorly  grounded  in  read- 

65 


66     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

ing,  writing,  arithmetic,  history  and  geography  that  much 
of  the  energy  of  the  instructor  is  used  in  the  teaching  of 
the  fundamental  elements  of  these  common  school 
studies,  leaving  little  time  or  strength  for  the  teaching  of 
method.  At  the  end  of  the  year  these  girls,  none  too 
sure  of  the  common  branches  and  far  from  being  ade- 
quately prepared  in  teaching  methods,  are  sent  out  to 
country  schools,  there  to  teach  another  generation  of 
boys  and  girls  the  common  branches.  Higher  entrance 
requirements  offer  a  practical  remedy  for  this  condition ; 
but  so  long  as  the  existence  of  the  department  depends 
upon  the  number  of  students  applying  for  the  training, 
it  is  hard  to  maintain  a  high  standard  of  intelligence  and 
training  in  the  candidates. 

The  inadequacy  of  instruction,  especially  in  the  com- 
mon branches,  is  a  common  cause  of  complaint ;  although 
an  impartial  critic  must  admit  that  in  one  year,  with 
young  girls  who  have  not  studied  these  subjects  for 
several  years,  any  great  results  would  be  manifestly  im- 
possible. Moreover,  the  students  have  no  strong  incen- 
tive for  accuracy  and  sureness  in  learning,  for  they  are 
not  required  to  take  the  county  examinations  required  of 
other  applicants  for  teaching  positions.  If  required  to 
stand  this  test  doubtless  the  results  in  acquiring  the  com- 
mon subjects  would  be  far  better  than  they  are;  but  on 
the  other  hand  there  is  a  common  feeling  that  the  re- 
moving of  this  inducement  to  attendance  would  ma- 
terially reduce  the  enrollment. 

It  is  repeatedly  emphasized  that  in  the  practice  teach- 
ing and  method  instruction,  actual  rural  conditions  are 
not  met.  Happily  this  criticism  is  becoming  less  and  less 
applicable  as  rural  practice  and  demonstration  schools  are 
added  to  the  equipment  of  each  department ;  and  even 
when  such  is  the  case,  it  may  be  that  the  truth  is  that  the 


WHAT  SUPERINTENDENTS  THINK        67 

"rural  condition"  needs  changing  rather  than  the  con- 
demned method.  The  meeting  of  so-called  "rural  condi- 
tions" means  sometimes  a  concession  to  local  prejudice  or 
tradition  which  is  not  for  the  best  interests  of  the  boys 
and  girls.  However  this  may  be,  there  remains  the  fact 
that  both  superintendents  and  country  patrons  feel  that 
in  many  cases  the  training  given  does  not  answer  their 
requirements ;  that  it  is  focused  rather  on  town  than  on 
rural  needs. 

It  is  clear  that  the  teachers  in  charge  range  all  the 
way  from  women  of  marked  talent,  excellent  training, 
and  absolute  devotion,  to  those  having  poor  instructional 
and  managing  abilities  and  no  sympathy  with  rural  needs 
and  attitudes.  It  is  also  clear  that  under  competent  state 
supervision  the  standard  of  preparation  and  power  for 
teachers  is  rising  steadily,  and  that  professional  spirit 
and  mastery  of  the  situation  are  much  greater  now  than 
they  were  five  years  ago.  The  same  improvement  can 
not  be  claimed  for  the  curriculum,  for  the  overcrowding 
due  to  the  necessity  of  covering  the  absolutely  necessary 
subjects  in  a  year's  time  is  still  responsible  for  much  hur- 
ried and  superficial  work.  With  the  now  officially  ad- 
vocated minimum  of  two  years'  training  beyond  the  high 
school  for  all  teachers,  there  has  developed  a  strong  con- 
viction on  the  part  of  many  superintendents  that  the  de- 
partments can  succeed  only  when  they  adopt  a  two-year 
course;  but  to  extend  the  course  to  two  years,  while  it 
might  lead  to  more  thorough  training,  would  mean  the 
fastening  of  the  local  system  upon  the  state. 

INTERESTING  SUGGESTIONS 

A  few  superintendents  show  in  their  answers  very 
clear  insight  into  the  situation,  and  a  constructive  ability 
which  augurs  well  for  the  future.     Among  these  are  th*" 


68     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

men  who  realize  that  the  duplication  of  the  paraphernalia 
necessary  for  doing  normal  school  work  effectively  is 
wasteful  and  extravagant,  an  economic  blunder  because 
so  much  of  it  is  used  very  little  compared  with  the  use 
it  would  have  if  put  into  a  larger  institution  in  which 
it  would  serve  many  times  the  number  of  students  it 
does.  That  the  departments  lack  the  breadth  of  the 
larger  schools,  and  therefore  fail  to  give  the  broadening 
incidental  training  that  is  desirable,  is  another  opinion. 
That  the  department  is  run  for  the  advantage  of  the  local 
school  system,  the  students  being  used  as  substitutes  to 
save  the  employment  of  a  regular  substitute  teacher  in 
the  town,  is  the  complaint  of  one  superintendent.  The 
following  stimulates  thought :  "The  work  of  most  rural 
teachers  in  actual  school  teaching  shows  that  they  are 
not  doing  as  well  as  they  should.  They  do  not  follow 
the  training  of  the  departments.  The  great  need  of 
the  rural  schools  is  good  supervisors  who  can  go  about 
keeping  each  teacher  in  the  right  path.  A  supervisor 
for  every  twenty-five  schools  could  take  care  of  the  young 
teachers  in  such  a  way  that  good  work  could  be  done 
in  rural  schools  by  these  normal  graduates.  As  it  is, 
much  of  the  work  is  a  farce.  Schools  in  this  county 
are  receiving  state  aid  when  they  do  not  deserve  a  cent 
of  it.  They  have  not  complied  with  the  law  at  all,  in 
many  cases." 

On  the  positive  side  there  is  much  to  be  said.  There 
seems  to  be  a  general  feeling  that  the  professional  sub- 
jects are  well  taught;  and  that  the  professional  atti- 
tudes of  the  graduates  are  sane  and  true,  although  they 
miss  much  specific  training  because  of  immaturity.  In 
the  practical  training  the  primary  work  seems  to  be  bet- 
ter done  than  that  for  older  children ;  and  there  has  been 
a  notable  emphasis  upon  reading  method,  which  is  fortu- 


WHAT  SUPERINTENDENTS  THINK        69 

nate  indeed.  The  training,  with  whatever  shortcomings 
it  may  have,  does  at  least  give  confidence  and  a  pro- 
gram to  the  graduate,  and  does  in  many  cases  serve  to 
develop  inherent  qualities  of  leadership.  Much  of  the 
approval  of  superintendents  is  based  upon  the  fact  that 
the  departments  are  so  inexpensive,  and  so  available  for 
all,  that  they  offer  training  to  many  who  could  not  other- 
wise have  it.  It  is  clear  that  if  more  centralized  institu- 
tions are  in  the  future  to  supplant  the  local  departments, 
some  form  of  subsidization  must  supply  the  place  of  this 
advantage.  Another  virtue  possible  to  the  small  de- 
partment is  that  the  students  come  very  intimately  into 
contact  with  the  training  teacher,  receiving  much  in- 
fluence from  her  individual  attitude  and  ability. 
Whether  this  advantage  is  greater  than  that  of  meeting 
many  trained  minds  and  many  conflicting  currents  of 
educational  thought  in  a  larger  institution  must,  of 
course,  depend  upon  the  personality  of  the  teacher  in 
question. 

Many  suggestions  are  given  for  the  improvement  of 
the  departments.  Most  of  them  include  the  greater  adap- 
tation of  methods  to  actual  rural  conditions,  a  need  which 
some  think  might  be  met  by  some  form  of  apprentice 
teaching  or  a  year's  paid  experience  between  the  first 
and  second  years  of  a  two  years'  course.  There  is  a 
strong  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  extension  of  the  course 
to  two  years ;  it  seems  clear  to  all  that  a  single  year  is 
altogether  inadequate.  (This  would,  of  course,  entail 
the  doubling  of  the  staffs,  since  the  present  force  is 
more  than  occupied  in  teaching  one  year's  work.)  Some 
means  of  standardizing  the  credits  with  those  received 
at  state  normal  schools  are  evidently  much  needed ;  some 
think  that  the  second  of  a  two  years'  course  should  be 
given  at  the  state  schools,  the  first  to  be  taken  at  home. 


70     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

In  connection  with  this  it  is  suggested  that  the  work 
be  more  carefully  graded,  especially  in  the  matter  of 
practice  teaching.  It  will  be  noted  that  this  is  now 
being  done  according  to  the  plans  of  the  present  super- 
visor. 

The  criticism  of  practice  teaching  and  of  lesson  plan- 
ning on  the  part  of  superintendents  is  not  especially 
helpful,  owing  probably  to  the  fact  that  these  teaching 
devices  are  comparatively  new  and  that  many  superin- 
tendents know  little  of  their  technique.  There  is  for  in- 
stance little  adverse  criticism  of  lesson  planning,  al- 
though an  investigation  of  it  made  by  university  repre- 
sentatives showed  it  to  be  almost  uniformly  poor.  On 
the  whole  there  seems  to  be  as  much  practice  teaching  as 
the  crowded  curriculum  allows ;  and  if  its  supervision 
and  constructive  criticism  are  in  some  cases  below  par, 
that  also  may  be  blamed  in  part  at  least  upon  the  lack  of 
time.  A  repeated  and  valuable  suggestion  is  that  super- 
vision of  the  graduates'  actual  teaching  for  one,  or  per- 
haps two  years  after  graduation  is  exceedingly  helpful; 
and  this  suggestion  is  being  carried  out,  in  the  face  of 
great  difficulties  in  many  cases,  by  several  training  teach- 
ers. 

One  of  the  most  pressing  questions  of  policy  now  be- 
fore the  departments  is  the  matter  of  putting  them  upon 
a  high  school  graduate  basis.  The  state  department  is 
strongly  in  favor  of  this,  although  it  has  been  forced  to 
waive  its  attitude  under  stress  of  war  conditions.  At 
present  writing  (1918-19)  only  seven  of  the  no  schools 
of  the  state  are  graduate  or  nearly  so,  although  others 
expect  to  adopt  that  status  upon  recovering  from  the 
effects  of  the  war.  Of  the  superintendents  who  ex- 
pressed their  ideas  upon  this  subject,  sixty-one  think  it  a 
good  idea  and  recommend  doing  it,  besides  the  three  who 


WHAT  SUPERINTENDENTS  THINK        71 

at  that  time  had  made  theirs  graduate  and  liked  it. 
Twenty-eight  thought  it  a  mistake,  some  of  them  evi- 
dently regarding  it  as  an  impending  calamity.  Five 
thought  it  unwise  to  make  the  change  as  yet,  but  thought 
that  eventually  it  would  have  to  be  done  if  the  depart- 
ments are  to  be  retained.  One  man  only  thought  that  a 
two-year  graduate  course  should  be  maintained,  although 
nine  were  in  favor  of  making  it  a  two-year  course,  the 
first  year  to  be  the  senior  high  school  year  and  the  second 
graduate.  Although  those  opposed  were  in  a  minority 
of  about  one  to  two,  they  gave  more  and  clearer  reasons 
for  their  faith  than  did  those  who  favor  the  graduate 
course.  Many  of  them,  together  with  some  who  favor 
the  change,  say  that  the  result  would  be  to  close  the 
smaller  departments,  since  the  girls  would  rather  take 
graduate  work  at  a  normal  school  or  college.  Many  re- 
mark that  to  eliminate  the  small  departments  would  be 
a  good  thing;  but  those  who  superintend  these  depart- 
ments do  not  agree.  No  less  than  twenty-one  men  speak 
of  this  probable  result.  The  conclusions  drawn  from 
many  discussions  of  a  point  evidently  of  great  impor- 
tance are  that  at  present  most  of  the  students  are  inade- 
quately prepared  for  the  year's  work,  and  therefore  an- 
other year  of  preparation  is  badly  needed ;  but  that  if 
this  additional  year  be  insisted  upon  the  result  will  be  to 
close  all  but  the  best  and  largest  schools,  as  the  girls  will 
prefer  to  attend  the  state  normal  schools  for  their  better 
equipment,  courses,  and  rewards. 

JUSTIFICATION    AND   CONTINUANCE 

There  is  practical  agreement  among  all  who  have 
known  the  working  of  these  departments,  that  they  have 
greatly  served  the  state,  that  their  graduates  are  far 
superior  to  teachers  without  normal  training  of  any  kind, 


72     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

and  that  to  do  away  with  them  without  some  adequate, 
even  superior  substitute,  would  be  an  unthinkable  blun- 
der. But  on  this  question  of  the  continuance  of  the  de- 
partments the  city  superintendents,  who  were  asked  their 
opinion  of  it,  divide  into  three  distinct  groups,  besides 
the  few  who  say  frankly  that  they  do  not  know  what  to 
think  or  say  about  it.  One  hundred  and  five  know  ex- 
actly what  they  think ;  and  of  this  number,  sixty-two  con- 
sider the  present  system  as  good  a  one  as  could  be  devised 
to  meet  present  conditions,  "as  it  meets  the  local  need." 
Twenty  want  county  normal  schools,  either  continuing 
the  best  school  in  the  county  or  establishing  a  new  school 
for  the  exclusive  training  of  country  teachers.  The  rest 
consider  the  present  or  a  county  system  inadequate  and 
temporary  at  best,  and  advocate  the  adoption  at  the  first 
practicable  moment  of  an  adequate  state  system,  which 
shall  give  to  rural  teachers  the  same  training  now  de- 
manded for  town  and  city  teachers. 

REASONS 

Two  reasons  predominate  among  those  given  for  keep- 
ing the  present  system:  first,  that  girls  who  have  once 
tasted  the  joys  of  town  life  and  have  received  at  a  state 
school  the  training  which  enables  them  to  secure  a  town 
position,  will  not  go  back  to  the  country  to  teach;  and 
second,  that  many  girls  are  not  financially  able  to  go  away 
from  home,  and  that  the  local  department  therefore  gives 
them  a  training  they  could  not  otherwise  have.  Another 
reason  which  appears  prominently  is  that  state  normal 
schools  do  not  plan  their  work  to  train  teachers  to  work 
happily  and  efficiently  in  rural  schools ;  that  they  are 
overtaxed  to  furnish  teachers  for  town  schools,  and 
scarcely  touch  the  rural  school  need. 

So  run  the  opinions  of  the  county  and  city  superin- 


WHAT  SUPERINTENDENTS  THINK        73 

tendents  of  Minnesota.  To  summarize  evidence  so  vary- 
ing and  conflicting  is  difficult  indeed ;  but  one  can  at  least 
say  that  the  men  and  women,  who  have  seen  the  system 
developed  during  the  last  few  years  and  who  have  the 
best  opportunities  for  appraising  it,  pay  sincere  tribute 
to  the  good  work  it  has  done  in  preparing  teachers  for 
rurals  schools  in  the  state ;  that  they  agree  that  with  all  the 
improvements  made,  it  is  a  system  still  far  from  achiev- 
ing maximal  efficiency;  but  that  they  are  not  agreed  as 
to  the  best  methods  of  remedying  faults,  nor  as  to 
whether  any  other  system  could  supersede  it  profitably. 

INTERPRETATION 

To  interpret  the  answers  of  the  superintendents  is  not 
so  difficult  as  their  varying  answers  might  indicate,  when 
one  takes  into  consideration  certain  facts  relating  to  con- 
ditions and  to  points  of  view.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
there  is  as  yet  no  actual  uniformity  in  the  departments, 
either  as  to  theory  or  as  to  practice ;  and  that  in  their 
preparation  for  their  work,  and  therefore  in  their  points 
of  view,  the  superintendents  vary  exceedingly.  City  and 
county  superintendents  have  each  their  peculiar  interests 
to  serve  and  their  local  communities  to  please.  In  this 
last  respect  especially  must  the  findings  be  interpreted  ; 
for  the  opinions  were  reported  before  the  awakening  of 
the  present  nationalizing  spirit.  In  these  men,  then, 
varied  in  ability  and  in  professional  outlook  from  one 
extreme  to  the  other,  there  appears  to  be  one  common 
conviction  that  the  training  departments  have  done  yeo- 
man service  to  the  school  system  of  the  state,  but  are  not 
on  the  whole  yet  satisfactory.  Few  of  them,  however, 
are  ready  to  go  the  length  of  recommending  their  dis- 
continuance, not  only  because  such  a  position  would  be 
very  unpopular  in  most  of  the  communities  having  the 


74     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

departments,  but  also  because  few  of  them  see  clearly 
the  practicability  of  substituting  a  larger  plan  and  a  more 
efficient  method  for  the  present  one.  Such  a  plan  must 
come  from  some  other  source  than  from  the  superin- 
tendents of  the  state,  although  many  of  them  are  now 
beginning  to  catch  the  vision  of  a  more  unified  and  schol- 
arly preparation  for  the  teachers  of  Minnesota  than  has 
ever  yet  been  realized.  Not  until  the  ideal  of  a  rural 
school  system  with  a  staff  equally  prepared  with  that  of 
town  and  city  schools,  paying  equal  salaries  and  offering 
an  equally  dignified  professional  position,  becomes  real 
to  the  minds  of  the  superintendents  of  the  state,  can 
Minnesota  hope  to  see  rural  school  teaching  and  rural 
school  training  become  other  than  provincial  in  feeling 
and  mediocre  in  quality. 

Many  agencies  are  at  work  in  this  as  in  other  states 
for  the  enlarging  of  the  vision  of  the  men  and  women 
who  supervise  the  local  educational  units  of  the  state. 
Yearly  conferences  at  the  state  university,  and  yearly 
conventions  at  one  of  the  larger  cities,  serve  to  introduce 
and  foster  the  newer  ideas ;  while  the  state  department, 
the  educational  press,  the  normal  schools  and  colleges, 
and  the  state  university  bring  to  bear  continually  those 
influences  which  strengthen  courage  to  change  old  custom 
and  to  furnish  precedents  and  devices  for  the  new 
regime.  War  conditions  have  accelerated  the  rate  of 
change  in  Minnesota;  the  next  few  years  may  see  the 
point  of  view  of  local  leaders  so  changed  as  definitely  to 
support  one  state  rather  than  many  community  schemes 
for  the  training  of  rural  teachers;  and  one  standard  of 
excellence  for  teachers  of  country  and  of  city  children, 
which  shall  put  the  child  born  and  reared  on  a  farm  at 
no  educational  disadvantage  when  compared  to  his  city 
cousin. 


IX.     CONCLUDING    STATEMENT 

The  whole  system  of  local  training  schools,  one  exam- 
ple of  which  has  now  been  studied  in  detail,  may  be  also 
reviewed  as  a  specific  example  of  a  phase  of  American 
education  which,  at  the  present  time,  demands  careful 
consideration.  The  Minnesota  system  is  as  well  devel- 
oped as  that  of  any  state,  and  therefore  may  be  weighed 
in  the  balance  as  to  its  good  and  its  evil  features  with 
fair  justice  to  the  ideas  which  it  exemplifies. 

The  outstanding  idea  of  the  institution  is  that  of  local 
control  of  the  local  educational  situation,  so  far  as  coun- 
try schools  are  concerned.  The  proof  of  this  lies  in  the 
clearly  defined  feeling  about  the  departments,  in  the  com- 
munities which  they  serve.  They  are  liked  there  because 
they  serve  the  local  needs — because  they  permit  girls  to 
receive  training  who  could  otherwise  have  none,  because 
"they  cater  to  the  local  situation,"  because  they  supply 
teachers  who  stay  in  the -country  for  a  little  while  (two  or 
three  years  at  the  most,  with  rare  exceptions),  but  who 
if  trained  in  the  normal  schools  would  not  serve  the  rural 
schools  for  a  day.  The  departments  are  now  institu^ 
tions  with  vested  interests,  and  any  .effort  to  supplant 
them  will  meet  with  vigorous  opposition.  As  they  have 
given  and  are  giving  great  and  good  service  to  the  state, 
of  course  no  one  could  wish  to  supplant  them,  except  by 
other  training  institutions  which  are  clearly  better. 

One  factor  in  the  situation  of  which  little  has  been 
said  is  that  of  the  very  uninviting  conditions  in  rural 

75 


76     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

districts.  The  salaries  are  low  in  the  country,  and  the 
living  conditions  are  often  poor,  involving  frequently  a 
degree  of  discomfort  and  loneliness  to  which  no  young 
man  or  woman  will  submit  if  better  is  to  be  had. 
Two  solutions  of  the  situation  are  possible.  The  one 
which  must  come  sooner  or  later  is  that  of  making  con- 
ditions good  enough  to  attract  good  teachers.  Salaries 
must  be  raised,  living  conditions  made  comfortable,  social 
life  provided,  and  the  equipment  of  the  country  school 
made  such  that  a  well-trained  teacher  may  use  her  train- 
ing in  the  school.  When  the  consolidated  school,  with  its 
comfortable  teacherage  and  its  adequate  salaries  and  its 
little  staff  of  trained  teachers,  with  its  attractive  school- 
house  set  in  well-planted  grounds,  with  its  social  and 
religious  opportunities  assured,  has  supplanted  the 
bleak  one-room  rural  schools,  it  will  no  longer  be  neces- 
sary to  provide  a  special  local  school  for  the  training  of 
rural  teachers ;  the  rural  school  will  then  be  able  to  com- 
pete with  the  village  or  city  school  in  securing  trained 
teachers.  And  when  such  competition  is  possible,  teach- 
ers trained  in  colleges  and  normal  schools  will  be  avail- 
able for  rural  education  as  they  are  for  town  and  city 
service,  and  the  increased  demand  will  have  to  be  met 
by  enlarging  the  normal  schools. 

But  the  solution  which  has  so  far  been  offered  and 
practiced — one  which  has  helped  the  situation  but  which 
is  far  from  being  final  or  ideal — is  to  offer  local  training 
at  a  very  low  cost.  Little  or  nothing  has  been  done  to 
make  the  country  school  position  more  attractive;  but 
something  has  effectively  been  done  to  keep  part  of  the 
teaching  supply  bound  to  local  rural  school  offerings. 
Such  a  teaching  supply  can  never  be  permanent;  it  can 
never  be  truly  professional ;  it  can  never  be  so  efficient 
as  one  more  expertly  trained.    The  most  that  can  be  said 


CONCLUDING  STATEMENT  77 

for  it  is  that  it  is  immensely  better  than  nothing,  and  that 
it  points  the  way  to  a  final  solution  of  the  problem. 

The  wisest  policy,  therefore,  would  seem  to  be  to  retain 
the  training  departments  in  the  city  schools  as  a  tem- 
porary expedient,  but  to  supplant  them  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable by  normal  school  training.  If  the  revenue  now 
used  by  the  departments  were  diverted  into  additional 
equipment  and  faculty  at  the  normal  schools,  which  al- 
ready possess  much  of  the  equipment  needed,  and  ade- 
quate organization  for  handling  so  large  an  enterprise ; 
and  if  to  these  facilities  for  training  there  were  added 
a  certain  degree  of  subsidization  of  students,  during  their 
period  of  study,  the  improvement  would  be  as  marked 
as  that  which  marked  the  introduction  of  the  present  sys- 
tem of  training.  Instead  of  one  or  two  overworked 
teachers,  dividing  their  energies  among  a  dozen  subjects 
and  so  teaching  few  if  any  with  expert  skill,  the  candi- 
dates would  then  be  instructed  by  specialists.  Instead  of 
a  department  with  fourteen  or  fifteen  students  at  the 
outside,  closely  affiliated  with  a  high  school,  they  would 
feel  the  professionalizing  influence  of  a  large  institution 
given  over  to  the  training  for  this  one  profession.  In- 
stead of  living  at  home,  where  too  often  the  students  are 
burdened  with  household  duties  or  diverted  by  social  life 
from  their  studies,  they  would  live  with  students,  and 
live  the  student  life. 

It  is  not  to  be  understood,  however,  that  the  transfer- 
ring of  this  important  work  to  the  normal  schools  as  at 
present  constituted  is  recommended.  Only  with  adequate 
equipment,  both  in  staff  and  in  facilities,  for  practice  and 
demonstration  can  the  normal  schools  realize  their  in- 
herent possibilities  in  this  direction.  Few  normal  school 
presidents  have  considered  this  work  as  a  serious  part  of 
the  business  of  their  schools.     They  have  been  content 


78     TEACHER  TRAINING  IN  MINNESOTA 

to  drop  a  few  stray  crumbs  from  the  educational  table 
for  the  country  schools  that  asked  them  for  bread.  The 
advantages  of  larger  schools  in  the  way  of  institutional 
life  cannot  compensate  for  any  lack  of  carefully  planned 
courses  under  the  direction  of  experts.  The  ideally 
trained  country  school  teacher  is  she  who  brings  to 
her  pupils  both  breadth  of  contact  with  larger  interests, 
and  the  sympathetic  understanding  which  comes  from  in- 
tensive study  of  concrete  problems  of  country  life. 

The  program  toward  which  the  state  department  in 
Minnesota  is  at  present  working  is  substantially  as  fol- 
lows :  the  number  of  training  departments  is  to  be  limited, 
being  somewhat  reduced  from  the  present  quota,  so  that 
there  will  be  one  good  department,  with  at  least  two 
teachers,  in  each  of  the  more  populous  counties.  Of 
these  two  teachers  one  will  teach  the  common  branches, 
receiving  a  salary  of  about  $1,000;  the  other  will  teach 
the  professional  subjects,  and  receive  a  somewhat  larger 
salary — a  scheme  which  will,  of  course,  involve  the  giv- 
ing of  more  state  aid.  The  affiliation  with  the  state  nor- 
mal schools  will  be  made  closer  as  occasion  offers,  and 
when  standards  warrant  such  a  provision,  a  year's  credit 
will  be  given  at  these  schools  for  work  done  in  the  local 
units.  As  soon  as  possible,  equal  training  for  grade  and 
rural  teachers  will  be  required,  the  rural  teachers  receiv- 
ing their  first  year's  training  at  the  home  school  and  the 
second  at  a  state  institution.  Eventually  it  is  hoped  that 
the  capacity  of  the  normal  schools  will  be  increased  until 
they  can  turn  out  teachers  enough  to  supply  the  needs  of 
the  state.  At  present  they  do  not  supply  nearly  enough 
for  the  town  and  city  schools. 

The  realization  of  the  hope  eventually  to  supplant  the 
local  departments  by  a  more  centralized,  efficient  and 
economic  system,  is  probably  far  in  the  future.     It  may 


CONCLUDING  STATEMENT  79 

be  years  before  Minnesota  will  feel  herself  justified  in 
changing  from  a  system  which  has  at  least  given  fair 
results  to  one  which  involves  the  spending  of  more  money 
but  which  will  yield  far  greater  progress  to  the  cause 
of  education.  The  initial  cost  and  the  reluctance  of 
those  whose  interests  are  served  by  the  established 
system  are,  of  course,  the  two  great  obstacles  to  change. 
Without  doubt  the  change  will  come  eventually  and  will 
bring  with  it  a  distinct  and  marked  raising  of  educational 
standards  in  the  rural  districts,  with  an  elimination  of 
many  regrettable  differences  now  existing  between  town 
and  country.  The  system  was  established  in  the  first 
place  because  the  central  educational  machinery  and  the 
state  normal  schools  were  not  meeting  rural  needs,  and 
it  has  grown  because  it  does  supply  an  immediate  need 
in  an  immediate  way.  At  the  time  when  it  became  an 
institution  the  people  of  the  state  were  not  used  to  acting 
in  unison  on  such  questions ;  without  doubt,  were  the 
problem  to  be  solved  anew  with  the  educational  machin- 
ery now  organized  in  the  state,  another  solution  more 
efficient  and  more  economical  would  be  found. 


APPENDIX  2 

(from  directions  sent  out  to  department  heads, 

1918) 

A  SUGGESTIVE  YEARLY  SCHEME  FOR  PRACTICE 

TEACHING 

FIRST  SEMESTER 
Kind  of  Teaching  Chief  Emphasis  Kind  of  Lesson  Plans 

Two^Weeks 

I.   Observation  and  Prepa-  General   class   proced-  Oral  and  written  dis- 

ration  ure  and  management  cussion  of  work  seen 

Group    teaching     (prefer-  Technique ;  drill  lessons  Class    procedure    out- 

ably  of  classes  observed  and    class    manage-  lined 

above)  ment 

One^Week 

Rural  visiting  and  obser-     Study  of  rural  school     Special  reports  of  ob- 
vation  conditions  servations 

No  teaching;  discussion  of     Study  of  rural  school     Summary     of     points 
rural  school  visits  conditions  made  in  discussion 

each  day 

Twelve  Weeks  (Three  Months) 
II.   Group  Teaching  Class  technique  Complete 

First  Month 

Arithmetic:     Grades  3     Drill  lessons;  motiva-     Detailed  plans  chiefly 
and  4                                          tion,      and      assign- 
ments 

Reading:    Grades  2  and  5     Drill  lessons;  motiva-     Detailed  plans  chiefly 

tion;      and     assign- 
ments 

Second  Month 

Language:  Grades  3  and  4     Drill  lessons;  motiva-     Detailed  plans  chiefly 

tion,      and      assign- 
ments 

Phonics:     Grades  1  and  2     Drill   lessons;  motiva-     Outline  plans  for 

tion,     and      assign-         phonics 
ments 

Third  Month 

Geography:     Grades   5     Inductive  lessons;  mo-  Detailed  plans  for 

and  6                                          tivation;      organiza-  geography 

tion,       questioning; 

assignments 

Spelling:     Grades  3  and  4     Drill  work  and  motiva-  Outline  plans  for 

tion  spelling 

80 


APPENDIX 


81 


SECOND  SEMESTER 
Kind  of  Teaching  Chief  Emphasis 


III.   Room  Teaching 

(Grades  i  to  8,  inclusive) 


First  Month 

Language 
Grammar 
Geography- 
Second  Month 

History 
Reading 


IV.   Rural  School  Practice 


V.   Spring  Primary  Class 


Eight  Weeks 

(a)  Special  methods  in 
the  subjects  taught 

(b)  Discipline    and 
room  management 


(a)  Special  methods  in 
the  subjects  taught 

Two  Weeks 

Management      of      all 
grades  at  once 

Eight  Weeks 

Starting     beginning 
children 


Kind  of  Lesson  Plans 


Outline  plans;  com- 
plete plans  required 
occasionally 


Complete  plans  for 
history;  outline 
plans  for  reading 


Class    procedure    out- 
lined 


Complete  plans  for 
reading;  outline 
plans  for  other  sub- 
jects 


GENERAL  RURAL  PRACTICE 

— Procedure    in    Arranging    for    Practice    Teaching    in    General 
Rural  Schools. 

At  least  two  weeks  of  rural  school  practice  is  required  of 
all  students  receiving  certificates  through  training  departments. 
This  practice  may  be  secured  in  two  ways:  (i)  Through  the 
general  rural  schools  of  the  county;  (2)  Through  rural  demon- 
stration schools.  Of  these  types  demonstration  school  practice 
is  best,  because  most  carefully  controlled.  But  the  demon- 
stration school  is  designed  to  suggest  ideal  rural  conditions,  and 
is,  therefore,  inadequate  as  a  means  of  acquainting  students 
with  typical  conditions.  For  the  latter  purpose  general  rural 
practice  in  various  country  schools  is  necessary,  and  at  least 
one  week  of  this  type  of  practice  teaching  should  be  provided 
for  each  student,  even  when  a  demonstration  school  is  main- 
tained. Under  normal  conditions  this  week  or  two  weeks  of 
rural  practice  should  come  in  the  spring  (see  yearly  practice 
scheme)   after  students  have  done  considerable  grade  teaching. 

In  arranging  this  general  rural  practice  modifications  of  the 
following  procedure  have  been  employed  by  many  teachers  and 
found  effective : 

1.  Confer  first  with  the  city  superintendent  as  to  the  best 
time  for  this  event ;  also  regarding  transportation,  board  and 
other  matters. 

2.  Confer  with  the  county  superintendent  and  get  a  list  of 
the  best  rural  schools  from  him. 


82  APPENDIX 

3.  Communicate  with  the  teachers  of  these  schools  by  tele- 
phone or  circular  letter,  asking  their  cooperation.  Request  them 
to  get  permission  of  their  local  school  officers  and  to  suggest 
arrangements  for  the  board  and  transportation  of  students. 

4.  Call  a  meeting  of  all  rural  teachers  who  agree  to  take 
students  at  least  one  week  in  advance  of  the  date  set  for  the 
rural  teaching.  Make  this  meeting  both  a  business  and  a  social 
occasion  with  the  training  students,  rural  teachers,  and  jaunty 
and  city  superintendents  and  their  wives  all  present.  Have 
light  refreshments  and  prepare  an  exhibit  showing  teaching 
ideas  from  training  department  work.  If  at  night,  have  students 
take  the  visiting  rural  teachers  into  their  homes.  This  social 
plan  will  get  the  students  and  teachers  acquainted  and  estab- 
lish good  feeling,  but  it  must  not  overshadow  the  business 
session. 

5.  At  the  business  session  of  this  meeting  these  items  should 
be  considered : 

(a)  Each  rural  teacher  should  previously  prepare  and  bring 
to  the  meeting  an  outline  of  fhe  subject-matter  to  be  taught 
while  students  are  out,  and  also  a  list  of  the  texts  used  in 
her  school.  This  information  should  be  left  with  the  train- 
ing teacher  to  aid   students   in  planning  their  work. 

(b)  Each  rural  teacher  should  receive  a  practice-scheme 
indicating  the  amount  of  teaching  the  student  is  to  do  during 
the  week.  This  will  vary  with  strong  and  weak  students  but 
the  following  is  indicated  as  an  average: 

FOR  TWO   WEEKS 

First  Week 

1st    day:     Observe  and  assist  or  teach  a  little. 

2nd  day:     Teach  one-quarter  of  day;  observe  remainder. 

3rd  day:     Teach  a  different  quarter. 

4th  day:     Teach   one-half   day    (the   two-quarters   formerly 

taught.) 
5th  day:     Teach  a  half  day   (the  other  half). 

Second  Week 

6th  day:     Teach  one-half  day   (observe  remainder). 
7th  day:     Teach  one-half  day   (observe  remainder). 
8th  day:     Teach   full   day    (teacher   absent). 
9th  day:     Teach  full  day   (teacher  present). 
10th  day:     Teach  full  day   (teacher  absent,  perhaps  visiting 
schools). 

FOR  ONE  WEEK 

When  students  are  out  but  one  week  the  following  scheme 
is  recommended : 


APPENDIX  83 

1st    day:  Observe  and  teach  one-quarter. 

2nd  day :  Teach  a  different  quarter. 

3rd  day:  Teach   one-half   day. 

4th  day:  Teach  full  day  (teacher  present). 

5th  day:  Teach  full  day  (teacher  absent  perhaps). 

(c)  The  training  teacher  should  also  give  each  rural  teacher 
an  outline  for  reporting  the  student  teacher  under  her  charge. 
Careful  explanations  on  observing,  criticising,  and  reporting 
student  teaching  will  be  necessary.  The  questions  in  this 
outline  should  emphasize  the  student's  ability  to  manage  and 
teach  the  whole  school  at  one  time,  this  being  the  particular 
purpose  of  this  type  of  practice.  No  group  teaching  should 
ever  be  done  in  rural  schools. 

(d)  Arrangements  for  transportation  and  board  of  students 
should  be  clearly  made  with  every  rural  teacher.  Free  trans- 
portation should  be  secured  when  possible. 

6.  Place  all  students  in  the  country  at  the  same  time,  and 
close  the  department.  This  plan  permits  the  training  teacher 
to  spend  her  time  supervising  students  and  in  visiting  each  one 
at  least  once.  To  increase  and  vary  experience,  students  may 
sometimes  exchange  schools  at  the  close  of  the  first  week. 

7.  Upon  the  return  of  students,  reports  and  class  discussions 
on  rural  teaching  experiences  and  problems  should  be  arranged. 
In  this  way  individual  experiences  of  professional  value  may 
be  made  to  benefit  all. 

LOAN   FUND 

Training  students  must  pay  their  own  board  while  in  the 
country.  To  assist  those  in  need  of  help  it  is  recommended  that 
a  permanent  "Loan  Fund"  be  established  by  having  students 
donate  at  least  half,  or  all,  money  received  as  pay  for  substi- 
tute teaching  in  both  town  and  country.  Other  additions  to 
this  fund  may  be  made  through  plays  and  special  activities. 
Needy  students  can  then  borrow  from  this  fund  and  return 
their  loans  the  following  year  when  teaching. 

PRACTICE    TEACHING    IN    RURAL   DEMONSTRATION 

SCHOOLS 

The  following  suggestions  on  practice  teaching  in  rural  demon- 
stration schools  are  offered  as  the  outgrowth  of  two  years' 
experience  and  experimentation : 

1.  Have  no  practice  teaching  in  the  demonstration  school  for 
one  month  or  six  weeks  at  the  beginning  of  the  year.  The 
demonstration  teacher  usually  needs  this  period  to  get  hold 
of  the  school  herself.  The  training  class  should  visit  the  school 
at  least  twice  during  this  time,  however,  to  observe  its  early 
conditions. 

2.  Experience  favors  sending  out  one  student  at  a  time  for 


84  APPENDIX 

two  weeks.  Students  should  secure  free  transportation  with 
farmers  when  possible;  stay  the  full  time  in  the  country;  board 
with  the  teacher,  but  have  a  separate  room;  and  share  all  the 
work  and  experiences  of  the  regular  teacher  including  teaching, 
janitor  work,  community  activities,  playground  supervision,  etc. 

3.  Students  practicing  in  demonstration  schools  should  have 
complete  charge  of  the  whole  school  when  teaching,  and  should 
never  do  group  work.  The  aim  is  to  provide  typical  rural  ex- 
perience. This  means  that  the  demonstration  teacher  and  stu- 
dent should  keep  the  school  together  as  if  but  one  teacher  were 
at  work,  following  the  regular  program  and  dividing  the  reci- 
tations, but  never  teaching  at  the  same  time. 

4.  A  practice-scheme  must  be  carefully  worked  out  for  each 
student  at  least  one  week  (preferably  two  weeks)  before  she 
goes  to  the  country.  The  same  schemes  as  those  submitted  for 
general  rural  practice  are  recommended. 

5.  (1)  Planning  Teaching — It  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  all  teaching  be  well  planned  before  students  go  to  the 
country.  In  planning  this  teaching,  experience  has  shown  the 
value  of  these  suggestions : 

(a)  Instruction  in  the  demonstration  school  should  be  based 
on   the   Minnesota    State   Course   of    Study. 

(b)  The  demonstration  teacher  and  the  training  teacher 
should  make  a  thorough  study  of  this  course,  working  together 
at  least  one  Saturday  forenoon  of  each  month,  and  planning 
the  work  for  the  demonstration  school  in  detail  one  month 
in  advance.  Supply  training  class  with  copies  of  this  detailed 
outline. 

(c)  Each  student  teaching  in  the  demonstration  school 
should  thoroughly  prepare  and  plan  all  work  to  be  taught 
at  least  one  week  in  advance.  To  aid  in  this  the  training 
department  should  have  two  sets  of  all  text  books  used  in 
the  demonstration  school. 

(d)  Judgment — Was  there  opportunity  for  the  children  to 
"judge  relative  values,"  or  compare  ideas  and  make  judgments 
on  points  during  the  lesson? 

(e)  Initiative — Did  the  children  show  any  initiative  by  mak- 
ing original   suggestions  of  worth  during  the  lesson? 

(2)     By  its  meihod.    That  is,  by  HOW  the  teacher  tries  to 
realize  her  purposes. 
— This  relates  to  the  teacher's  skill  or  technique. 

(a)  Types  of  teaching — Were  the  types  of  lessons  used 
rightly  chosen  for  the  purpose  and  subject  matter  presented? 
Were  they  well  handled  and  combined? 

(b)  Questions — Were  the  questions  good? 

(c)  Assignments — Were  the  assignments  problematic,  moti- 
vated, definite,  and  reasonable?  That  is,  did  they  appeal  to 
the  children,  make  them  understand  just  what  they  were  to 
do,  and  reveal  a  purpose  in  doing  the  task  set? 

(d)  Illustrative  materials  and  devices — Were  these  well 
chosen,  ready  at  hand,  and  effectively  used? 


APPENDIX  85 

(e)  Study — Was  every  opportunity  improved  for  showing  the 
children  how  to  study  and  inculcating  economical  habits  of 
study? 

(f)  Lesson-plan — Was  the  lesson-plan  practical  and  effec- 
tive? Did  the  teacher  follow  it  approximately  and  keep  to 
her  main  purposes?  Was  she  skillful  in  meeting  unexpected 
situations? 

(3)     By  its   results.      That   is,   by   whether   the    teacher  does 

what  she  intended  to  do. 

(a) — Did  the  teacher  accomplish  the  specific  purpose  or  aim  of 
the  lesson?  Were  the  children  interested?  Were  they  in- 
structed— did  they  get  something?  Was  what  they  got  worth 
while?  Did  they  think ?  Did  they  fix  facts  or  information? 
Did  they  show  growth  in  correct  habits  and  right  attitudes? 
Note:     Educational    measurements   and    tests    should   be    used 

occasionally  in  demonstration  schools  for  testing  results. 

(b)  All  lesson  plans  prepared  by  students  for  the  demon- 
stration school  should  be  written  in  ink  on  uniform  paper; 
corrected  by  the  training  teacher ;  revised  by  students ;  read 
with  care  by  the  demonstration  teacher  when  the  student  first 
arrives ;  then  marked  with  comments  by  the  student  after 
her  teaching,  indicating  where  they  worked  and  where  they 
were  defective ;  and  finally  returned  to  the  training  teacher 
and  filed  permanently  in  a  special  folio.  Such  a  file  will  be 
valuable   for  summary  and  reference. 

(c)  The  demonstration  teacher  should  give  her  whole  atten- 
tion to  observing  the  student  while  she  teaches.  If  the  regu- 
lar one-teacher  program  is  followed  and  the  demonstration 
teacher  and  student  do  not  teach  at  the  same  time  this  will 
be  possible.  While  observing,  the  demonstration  teacher 
should  sit  in  the  rear  of  the  room  and  should  take  notes  in 
a  special  notebook  devoted  exclusively  to  this  purpose.  This 
notebook  may  well  be  ruled  in  two  columns,  one  side  for 
recording  what  the  student  did,  the  other  for  making  criti- 
cisms and  suggestions  on  the  thing  done.  This  critic's  note- 
book will  form  a  permanent  record  for  reference. 

(d)  As  an  aid  in  judging  student  teaching,  demonstration 
teachers  will  find  some  help  in  the  following  outline: 

HOW  TO  JUDGE  A  LESSON 

A  lesson  or  a  series  of  lessons  may  be  judged: 

(1)     By    its    aims   and    purposes.     That    is,    by    WHAT    the 
teacher  tries  to  do. 
— This  relates  chiefly  to  subject-matter. 

A.  Was  the  subject-matter  presented  in  harmony  with  the 
general  aim  of  education;  that  is,  was  it  of  actual  life  value 
to  the  children? 

B.  Did  the  subject-matter  and  instruction  given  fulfill  the 
McMurry  standards  in  the  following  respects : 


86  APPENDIX 

(a)  Motivation — Was   it   motivated?     Did   the   children 
feel  a  purpose  in  the  lesson  which  appealed  to  them? 

(b)  Organization — Were   both   the   teacher's   lesson   and 
the  children's  ideas  well  organized? 

6.  Presenting  criticism.  The  demonstration  teacher,  as  well 
as  the  training  teacher  must  use  the  utmost  tact  and  sympathy 
in  presenting  criticism  to  students.  The  best  time  for  doing 
this  and  talking  over  lessons  is  in  the  evening  after  school  hours, 
or  after  supper.  In  discharging  this  duty  the  demonstration 
teacher  will  find  the  following  points  suggestive : 

(a)  In  general,  criticism  should  be  presented  much  as  a 
development  or  inductive  lesson  is  taught;  that  is,  the  stu- 
dent should  be  led  to  criticise  herself  and  suggest  improve- 
ments through  questioning. 

(b)  Before  meeting  the  student  for  this  purpose  the  demon- 
stration teacher  should  go  over  her  notes  and  organize  the 
points  of  criticism  she  expects  to  present,  numbering  them  for 
clearness. 

(c)  Pick  out  and  commend  the  good  points  in  the  teaching, 
first  explaining  why  they  were  good. 

(d)  In  presenting  corrective  criticism  induce  the  student  to 
criticise  herself  first  in  the  light  of  standards  established  by 
the  training  course. 

(e)  Never  make  an  unfavorable  criticism  without  suggesting 
a  better  substitute  for  what  was  done.  That  is,  make  your 
criticisms  constructive. 

(f)  Illustrate  the  points  of  criticism  made,  by  several  con- 
crete examples.  If  the  student's  questioning  is  poor,  for 
example,  several  of  the  poor  questions  used  should  be  cited, 
and  better  questions  given,  to  illustrate  the  poor  quality. 

(g)  Summarize  the  criticisms  given  each  day  in  the  form  of 
definite  statements,  and  have  the  student  keep  a  numbered 
list  of  these  in  her  plan  book.  Review  these  occasionally  by 
referring  to  them,  and  particularly  by  making  a  final  summary 
at  the  end  of  each  week  or  at  the  close  of  the  practice  period. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Burnham,  Ernest:  RURAL  TEACHER  PREPARATION  IN 
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Burnham,  Ernest:  A  DECADE  OF  PROGRESS  IN  THE 
TRAINING  OF  RURAL  TEACHERS,  IN  PROCEED- 
INGS OF  THE  N.  E.  A.,  1915,  801-807. 

Foght,  H.  W.:  RURAL  EDUCATION  in  COMMISSIONER 
OF  EDUCATION  REPORT,  1915,  I,  98-09- 

Foght,  H.  W.:  RURAL  TEACHER  PREPARATION  IN 
HIGH  SCHOOLS  AND  COUNTY  TRAINING  CLASSES. 
Bui.  Bureau  of  Education. 

Hood,  Wm.  R. :  DIGEST  OF  STATE  LAWS  RELATING  TO 
PUBLIC  EDUCATION.  Bui.  No.  47,  1915,  U.  S.  Bureau 
of  Education. 

Inspector  of  State  High  Schools,  State  of  Minnesota,  ANNUAL 
REPORTS   to   date.     State   High   School   Board,   St.   Paul. 

Kent,  Raymond  A.:  A  STUDY  OF  STATE  AID  TO  PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS  IN  MINNESOTA.  University  of  Minnesota, 
Studies   in   the   Social   Sciences,   No.    11,   Minneapolis,    1918. 

Larson,  W.  E. :  THE  WISCONSIN  COUNTY  TRAINING 
SCHOOLS  FOR  TEACHERS  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS. 
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McBrien,  J.  L. :  RURAL  EDUCATION,  in  COMMISSIONER 
OF  EDUCATION  REPORT,  1914,  I,  103-104. 

Minnesota,  State  of:  HIGH  SCHOOL  BOARD  RULES  RE- 
LATING  TO   HIGH   AND   GRADED    SCHOOLS.     Bui. 

Monahan,  A.  C:  RURAL  EDUCATION,  in  COMMISSIONER 
OF  EDUCATION  REPORT,  1913,  I,  182-184. 

Pittinger,  Benjamin  F. :  RURAL  TEACHERS'  TRAINING 
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Smart,  Thomas  J.:  AN  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  CURRICULUMS 
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Makers 
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PAT.  JAN.  21.  1908 


VB  444 1  I 


4!678,'J 


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